1. why don't i read more about radicals supporting liberal causes like election finance reform to make 1 voter = 1 vote instead of 1 $ = 1 vote? seems to me that if elections were publicly funded, then the influence of money would be reduced and more programs beneficial to the poor would be enacted. "better half a loaf .... etc." i haven't heard anything about election finance reform on this list.
2. why don't radicals cooperate more with each other to chip away bit by bit at the undesirable aspects of democratic-capitalism that they all agree upon, which are many. i'm thinking of common demos, common forums and other common information channels. seems they are more interested in pursuing their own theoretical agendas via their separate channels than in achieving practical results via cooperation. contrast this lack of common action with the capitalists who may be fiercely competitive with each other in the business arena, but who know how to circle their wagons collectively to defend their common interests when threatened.
norm
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JessEcoh:
some would say that this suggests a twofold strategy for making social change. as i think howard zinn put it, we can try "grab the levers of power" whenever possible, and force the state both to do justice and to open itself
to further intervention (providing more "levers" for people to "grab," and preventing the state from suppressing peoples' attempts at self-organization
outside the state, e.g. progressively scaling back military and police forces); at the same time, we can build forms of popular power which are organized outside the state, e.g. neighborhood assemblies and workplace-based councils, in which people can make (and eventually enforce) decisions in a more truly democratic manner. we might even, as bookchin has urged, find ways to force the state to cede more and more power *to* these organs of popular power, until popular power grows strong enough to challenge the power of the state. at that point, a confrontation will ensue... hopefully by then we will have succeeded in defanging the state of its means of violence enough to ensure that whatever army and police forces are left give in (defect, surrender) without putting up too much of a fight...
that's the only sort of revolution i see much hope for.
--jesse. ---------------------------------------------------