Max Sawicky wrote:
>
> There was no more racism in historical populism ("HP")(pre-1910)
> than in any other movement, except possibly abolitionism.
> You could find the counter-part of Watson (not Watkins)
> in the SP, among other places.
While what some like to call the Zinoviev model of the party (Democratic Centralism Comintern style) has become unacceptable, the other model history offers us, the Debsian model (with the center exercising little or no control over local organizations) is (in the U.S.) certain to allow if not guarantee a racist thrust to the organization as a whole. Debs is no better a model than Stalin's Lenin or populism.
The fight against racism in the left requires some sort of modified democracy -- democracy because an undemocratic movement won't go any place, modified (how I do not know) because straight democracy in the U.S. will always be racist.
Carrol