>The fact of the matter is that we do _not_ have mass-based left-wing labor
>or communist organizations in the United States today. So, if you want
>black radicals to organize themselves in such a context, you have to _first
>create the context in question_. ...
Of course this post does nothing to clarify what the goals of the BRC are or answer the question of whether it is possible or desirable to achieve racial unity or black operational unity. Even if the BRC were the only institution that can 'build numbers' this in itself proves nothing about the desirability of the long term vision. Which is what?
In the course of the debate, I also raised questions about how the horizons of blacks can be limited if their primary organization becomes one grounded in radicalism of the red, black and green variety. For example, see the reading lists drawn up for members by the leaders of the BRC--mostly by black authors on so called black topics.
> Bring the mass communist party into
>existance first, and _if_ black radicals do not join it, then and only then
>you might criticize them.
Oh, I see only non blacks should organize such a party and having done so, then invite blacks in, meanwhile 'allowing' blacks to keep themselves separate in their own organization. What's the implication here? Blacks are not competent enough to actually bring a broad based party or union or party or mag into existence, helping build it from the ground up. As if this is not the best guarantee that such an institution will indeed be a racist one. This seems to me to be the wet dream of every racially exclusivist left publishing house, union, party, rag, etc. 'We'll seek you out to hear what you people want' but we'll set up the house independently of you. Meanwhile, go ahead and do your thing, have a march, hold a congress, keep to yourselves on your own website. This gives the honkies too much peace and quiet. If this is objectively racist, so be it: I'd rather have all these left list servs flooded by American minorities while the traffic one radical ethnic ones lessened.
>The mixed record of the CPs,
Mixed? Please read Kolko's Anatomy of Peace. Whatever social insurance the workers and peasants forced upon the CP as a condition of their cooperation in the prosecution of the war have now largely been reversed by 'their' leaders, gorging themselves on privatized land and enterprises.
> There is no
>point in apologizing for or criticizing the Vitnamese CP from our vantage
>point, is there? What difference does it make?
Of course there is. There are lessons for the working class everywhere here regarding the oppressiveness of bureaucratic socialism (I no longer subscribe to the theory of state capitalism).
. Our first priority at this point in history
>is to overcome the feeling of TINA, especially among the workers of the
>country we live in.
All the while remembering the past so the working class does not again lose its independence.
Yours, Rakesh