_What is to be done ?_ is a book on ethics.
CB
>>> Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> 02/08/00 12:28PM >>>
Doug wrote to Michael Yates:
>I thought I'd made it clear what I thought. But maybe I didn't. I
>wouldn't have written the article Marc did, nor would I have
>published it in NY Press. I'm not comfortable bashing the left for
>the amusement of cynical rightwingers. But I think Marc makes lots of
>good points - about the odd cultishness of the Free Mumia movement,
>about its excessive claims of innocence, and about its inability to
>broaden into a comprehensive anti-DP movement. All Marc's critics
>seem to have forgotten that he made very strong anti-death penalty
>statements - unlike C Clark Kissinger, who's inspired by memories of
>revolutionary firing squads performing public executions.
If the failure to organize a comprehensive anti-Death Penalty movement is the main criticism of the Free Mumia movement, why not use the Labor Party as a vehicle for it, instead of kvetching from the sideline? I think it would take a mass working-class political party or movement -- something far bigger than the Free Mumia movement can ever hope to be -- to reverse Americans' sentiments toward capital punishment, cops, & prisons. Then, you'd have to battle not a Clark Kissinger & a Ramsey Clark, but a Max, a Wojtek, top labor officials, many crypt-Dems, etc., first to make the Labor Party get off its ass, and then to make it take up an anti-death-penalty campaign. Doug & Nathan have a point, but you guys don't see the beam in your own political eyes (of the Labor Party, the Dems, the AFL-CIO, etc.). Doug can use his newsletter, radio show, etc. to promote the cause, too, unlike Mike, Carrol, etc. Where's political responsibility? I mean, political responsibility of organic intellectuals? Don't mourn, organize!
Yoshie