In every ideology you have extremists that want
disruption,that happens right or left wing,we on the
left don't have that problem today, our problem is
coming from the neo-liberals that come off sounding
leftist,but are really less in favor of leftist ideas
than they our of capitalists ideas and work that
direction and have made it very hard on we true left
wingers.Example:The green party have sucked a lot of
leftists into their movement by saying that they
shared the same ideals as the liberals, but are more
capitalist,and they the liberals that have followed
the greens,they are out through the election
process,that all they want to do is disrupt the
elections enough ,so that democrats do not get in
office and that is their only purpose,not that they
oppose the current two party system, they hate the
dems. and you won't hear them making ill comments
about the republicans or bushs phoney war on
terror.But the days of the extreme leftists like the
chicago 7 and the black panthers pose no threat,today
The neo-liberals,liberalism,and right wingers pose
the greatist threat.
Max
--- s-t-t at juno.com wrote:
> Nathan Newman write
> > There is a whole wing of the left that prefers the
> purity of failure,
> > since it avoids the actual strategic choices
> required by any
> > moderately successful movement for social change.
> There is a
> > perpetual utopianism allowed by failure.
>
> Certainly. Adolph Reed, Jr. said it succinctly in
> this excerpt from
> "Sectarians on the Prowl" in _Class Notes_:
>
> "Ultraleftism is a distinct political tendency. At
> bottom it is a
> refusal to take into account the ways that existing
> political realities
> limit possibilities for action. Ultraleft politics
> confuses means and
> ends, muddles the distinctions among goals,
> strategy, and tactics.
> Historically, for instance, ultraleftists have
> dogmatically opposed
> participating in coalitions with liberals and
> mainstream politicians.
>
> "This tendency severs the idea of commitment to
> principle from the need
> to make realistic assessments of the options that
> exist in the fluid
> here-and-now; to analyze tough-mindedly our
> strengths and weaknesses; to
> think seriously and instrumentally about how to
> build a constituency
> within a social base (to "unite the many to defeat
> the few," for those
> nostalgic for old slogans).
>
> "Ultraleftism is a maximalist politics. It's much
> more about taking
> positions that express the intensity of one's
> commitments than about
> organizing or building anything. Rather than
> crafting language to build
> broad support for a substantively radical program,
> for instance,
> ultraleftists prefer potted rhetoric that asserts
> their bona fides,
> without concern for communicating outside the ranks
> of the believers.
>
> "Sectarianism and ultraleftism have long histories,
> dating back even
> before Lenin's 1920 tract, '_Left-wing' Communism:
> An Infantile
> Disorder_. But most recently they have arisen as a
> response -- or
> nonresponse -- to the disappearance of radical
> activism's apparent social
> base after the 1960's. The decline of large-scale
> anti-war activism and
> black-protest mobilization put radicals in the
> unsettling position of
> developing increasingly revolutionary political
> rhetoric as the
> constituencies for that rhetoric withdrew."
>
> Of course, Reed does precede the above with a
> description of how the term
> 'ultraleftism' is used to silence debate from the
> left. His example is
> progressive supporters of Bubba the Blubbering
> Baptist decrying left
> detractors as 'ultraleftists.'
>
> Another essay, "Martyrs and False Populists," in the
> same book also
> addresses others radical pantomimes (for example:
> adulation for the
> militia movement) describing them as signs of the
> current weakness of the
> US left.
>
> -- Shane
>
>
>
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