It's not for you or me to decide any of the above, which is the whole point of autonomous organizing of blacks. The BRC might become inactive, it might become conservative, it might become actively socialist -- who knows? Besides, whatever you or I say on LBO will have _no_ effect on the BRC, for better or worse (except Art & Charles might read our posts). Remember that, with regard to race, LBO, like most left e-lists, isn't very well integrated racially (to put it mildly). So why do you think what we say here matters in any way? Not many black persons, in or out of the BRC, are listening to us here. Besides, if we can't even racially integrate this very forum where we are having a discussion, what gives us the right to remain token racial minorities in a nearly all-white setting while criticizing an honestly all-black affair? If integration is so important, why not integrate this list first???
>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.
Is the BRC more or less radical than an "integrated" organization of like character? The BRC seems to have a wider political horizon, at least, than the Labor Party, which doesn't say anything about socialism, feminism, etc., for instance.
>>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.
Not necessarily. Blacks & Latinos together may spearhead an organizing of the mass based communist party, for instance. In such an event, will whites and other races join them? Some of them will, but others won't. It can be Asian-Americans who take the initiative in radical organizing, though that's _very_ unlikely. Anyhow, if you are unhappy with the BRC, why don't you organize a competing integrated organization and invite the BRC members and see if they will come? If you can't do that, again, there is no point in carping from the sideline. Leftists ought to be doers, not just talkers.
>>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.
I already mentioned two reasons for the above: the strength of capital & the weakness of the workers, in Vietnam and the rest of the world. It's un-Marxist & voluntarist to think that "bad leaders" are the cause of everything bad.
>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.
You know, Rakesh, harping on past failures & disappointments in a cultural condition where people are encouraged to fetishize impossibility and to think, moreover, that if there is any revolutionary change, it will be for the worse -- that is not a politically smart move. The point now is to encourage people to think that a radical change for a better society is _possible and desirable_. It's a matter of emphasizing the future, against the late modern malaise of hip defeatism.
Yoshie