>>how are these things irrelevant to building and defending a party? if
>>there is really no party to join--and there sure hasn't been a whole lot
>>where i've lived and what there was being engaged with those folks mostly
>>led me to the above, then what exactly more do you want me to do to prove
>>my activist street cred to you?
>>
>>i certainly don't seek to create a party that seeks to get people elected
>>to office. nor, i imagine, do you based on what you've typed.
>
>I don't mean electoral parties; I mean political parties in a broader
>sense than just a machine to get people elected to office, though parties
>may participate in electoral politics among other things. What I mean by a
>political party is an organization with an _explicit & comprehensive_
>political program collectively worked out, agreed upon, adhered to, &
>promoted by its members (I exclude one-issue organizations from my
>definition of political parties, though other people's definitions may
>include them). You join a party when you agree to its program (including
>its long-term political objectives). If you agree to most parts of the
>program but not all, you may still join it & try to change the parts you
>cannot accept in good conscience. If the party fails to change its
>program in accordance with you political belief, you may leave it, to join
>another or build a new one with like-minded people; if you decide that
>disagreeable parts of the program are far outweighed by agreeable parts,
>you may stick to it.
as an aside, this leaving bizzo is disturbing! sounds like good ole american individualism: in the U.S, as bellah et al. write, "freedom is the freedom to walk away." (paraphrase).
i happen to think that, at this historical moment, we need to engage in movement building first. although i am also a big defender of the need for people to recognize that it's okay to drop out of movement building because they simply cannot afford the time or energy and that it's also okay to do theory or take time out to flesh out inchoate theoretical ideas and problems as they are informed by pol. practice. i find the ideal of the "movement builder" extremely sexist in its assumptions, as i've explained before.
but, although i believe that theory and practice are mutually constitutive, i happen to think that, right now, movement building takes primacy because i think that leading via party, right now, is akin to trying to make theory dictate practice. for reasons i have also explained before, i think we need to strengthen the associational ties necessary to create strong solidaristic bonds of the kind needs to create a strong left movement and, possibly, a more coherent political strategy. i take this from marx, as well, particularly in his work in _Critique of the Gotha programme_ and in his writings on the Paris Commune. marx is quite explicit about the need to build a movement and to strengthen civil society. i've quoted him here before on this.
i think theory and leadership needs to emerge from practice, even while theory can help us to decide which struggles to engage in. so, i take my position from the old man:
"For even though the question "where from" presents no problems, the question "where to?" is a rich source of confusion....If we have no business with the construction of the future or with organizing it...there can still be no doubt about the task confronting us at present: the ruthless criticism of the existing order...
[W]e wish to influence our contemporaries...The problem is how best to achieve this. In this context there are two incontestable facts. Both religion and politics are matters of the first importance in contemporary Germany. Our task must be to latch onto these as they are and not to oppose them with any ready-made system such as the _Voyage en Icarie_. [...] Just as religion [by which marx means theory, philosophy] is the table of contents of the theoretical struggles of mankind, so the political state enumerates its practical struggles. Thus the particular form and nature of the political state contains all social struggles, needs and truths within itself. It is therefore anything but beneath its dignity to make even the most specialized political problem--such as the distinction between the representative system and the Estates system--into an object of its criticism. For this problem only expresses at the political level the distinction between the rule of man and the rule of private property. Hence the critic must concern himself with these political questions [which the crude socialists find beneath their dignity]. By demonstrating the superiority of the representative system over the Estates system he will interest a great party in practice. By raising the representative system from its political form to a general one...he will force this party to transcend itself--for its victory is also its defeat.
Nothing prevents us...from taking sides in politics, i.e. from entering into real struggles and identifying ourselves with them. This does not mean that we shall confront the world with new doctrinaire principles and proclaim: Here is the truth, on your knees before it...We shall not say: Abandon your struggles, they are mere folly; let us provide you with the true campaign-slogans. Instead we shall show the world why it is struggling.... [...] Our programme must be: the reform of consciousness not through dogmas but by analyzing mystical consciousness obscure to itself, whether it appear in religious or political form. It will then become plain that the world has long since dreamed of something of which it needs only to become conscious for it to possess it in reality. It will then become plain that our task is not to draw a sharp mental line between past and future but to complete the thought of the past. Lastly, it will become plain that mankind will not begin any new work, but will consciously bring about the completion of its old work."
from Letters from the Franco-German Yearbooks--a reply to Ruge's claims about the futility of engaging in actually existing political struggles.
kelley