>>> cbcox at ilstu.edu 10/25/00 04:44PM >>>
At times Justin and I have said nasty things about each other, and doubtless will again, but he here states what has to be the core of any progressive movement in the United States (revolutionary or reformist). I'll add a footnote to his point about working with Dems. I worked in the Jackson campaign in 1988 (in fact I initiated the campaign in this congressional district). It was worthwhile in that I formed new relationships (and recemented old ones) that still hold potential for future conflicts if any arise before alxheimers catches up with me. But from the viewpoint of "influencing" the Democratic Party -- the *one* promise that the Dukakis organization made to the Jackson people was that they would provide money for a registration drive. Hah! Not a penny came through. As I had expected. Jackson made no complaint -- as I'd expected. The politician who gave us the Civil Rights Act, incidentally, was not Lyndon Johnson but that essence of conservative Republicanism, Everett Dirkson. And we would have gotten that act regardless of who was in office in Washington. We won it by mass action outside the electoral system. We also won the passage of ERA by Congress through mass action outside the electoral system. We lost it when the mass action stopped and the wheeling and dealing in the corridors of power started.
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CB: You seem to cite getting the Civil Rights Act as a worthwhile goal for political action, one that might serve as a model for future left movement goals.
Yet, how is the Civil Rights Act, once gotten, valuable for the working class and our movement ? Not as a piece of paper on the books, but through enforcement in , none other than, the bourgeois courts and legal system. This implies left movement activity in the bourgeois courts and legal system.
Political activity in the bourgeois court legal system is not different , in the current analysis, than political activity in the bourgeois electoral system and wheeling and dealing in the corridors of power. You might as well try to make the revolution in the Star Chamber, or Hitler's courts, well that's rhetorical flourish on my part.
The illusion that winning laws in the streets is more radical and correct than winning them in the electoral system or lobbying system raises questions about the overall strategy expressed by Comrade Carrol. Bourgeois judges are just as much part of the state as are bourgeois politicians.
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Those who hope to reform the Democratic Party or who still stick to the lesser evil theory will eventually be voting for Eichmann against Hitler -- or for Hitler against someone worse than him.