To be honest, I don't think that those who know the "secret handshake," as Max put it, in the Labor Party have much interest in real democracy or self-organization. (LP members who are not in the know, however, must think otherwise.) If they were, besides signing up members, they'd be getting involved in some practical politics of protest _as the Labor Party_ and recruiting through this avenue. Since they seem to be neither running candidates now nor organizing for/against something practical, isn't it natural for us to ask, "So, what's the point of joining the party, then? Just to become a nominal member?" Besides, how are ordinary, non-unionized, non-media-junkie Americans to find out that the Labor Party even exists???
>>I sometimes suspect, though, that the Labor Party is not actually designed
>>to become an independent electral party. I think that it may be better
>>understood as a creation of liberal labor officials who wanted to have
>>their own miniature political machine to negotiate their place within the
>>existing framework of labor officialdom and the Democratic Party.
>
>You can suspect that, but do you have any evidence for it? Most of
>the LP people I know hate the Democrats and are socialists of some
>sort or other, not "liberals." The platform was largely written by
>two more-or-less Marxists, Adolph Reed and Howard Botwinick.
The platform ain't bad, but how are we to make use of it, if the LP keeps sitting on its ass???
Yoshie