---- Original Message ----- From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
>Yes- and how is the "militant few" going to demonstrate their power
outside
>the realm of production? That line of thought led to the Weathermen and
>other anti-majoritarian absurdities of strategies by the New Left.
>
>Nathan Newman
-Outside the realm of production, you can take examples from -unemployed councils, neighborhood relief committees, the Poor -People's Movement, etc. from the 30s, the 60s, and beyond. Occupying -a building, as a tactic, isn't unique to sit-down strikes. The point -is that any movement -- including union organizing -- begins with -"the militant few" as core organizers who find effective tactics to -announce their existence, demonstrate the power of collective -actions, etc.
The problem with all these tactics - unacknowledged by all you Dem bashers - is that are all dependent on sympathetic politicians who hold back crushing them immediately. Without a supportive Democratic governor in 1936-37, the Flint sitdown strikes would have been smashed immediately. The Poor Peoples Movements were based on kicking the ass of liberals who would respond to such tactics.
That is a very different situation from contexts like the war where the "militant few" have neither supportive politicians nor a supportive population-- and therefore have NO power. At least on the shopfloor, union militants have some power to threaten direct economic production, a threat that forces some compromise by profit-seeking capitalists. For vote-seeking politicians, kicking the ass of unpopular militants is often a pure win strategy. So such a "militant few" without popular support has zero power and thus zero leverage.
-- Nathan Newman