Fwd: green dysfunctionality and left disengagement

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Mon Jul 29 13:33:42 PDT 2002


ajacobson at igc.org wrote:
>
> I don't think it is an overstatement to say that virtually
> every political strategy available to the left has been tried at one point or
> another. Since we don't have socialism, I guess they can all be termed a
> failure.

A strategy _can_ fail simply because the other side (the ruling class) is stronger. In fact (taking a term from tennis) it is arguable that "wrong" strategy can be an instance of "forced error," not correctable by anything within one's own power. (The U.S. left before the Comintern forced some sense on the CP was always disastrously racist -- and only some leftists even now recognize that a necessary though not sufficient condition for working-class unity is the struggle _within_ the class against racism and sexism).
>
> Yet people struggle and occassionally wring concessions from capital. So if
> mass movements are the only "successful" strategy, in a sense, than the left
> should do whatever improves the chances for mass movements to develop and
> succeed, and IMHO that happens outside the DP.

This I think is central. The DP exists (and always has existed) primarily to block the formation of any sort of mass movement -- or to absorb and neutralize such movements (CIO, black liberation, anti-war, women's liberation) when they do arise. It was a bleak day for the left in the u.s. in 1936 when the CPUSA cast its fortunes with the Democrats.

Carrol
>
> Alan Jacobson



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