Halle weighs in

[Nathan Newman]

I have to say that I agree with what John says below.  From different
political perspectives, John, ChuckO and myself have continually noted that
there is a pervasive disparagement of activists on LBO that goes beyond
intellectual division of labor.  My piece of the criticism is that the
theory on the list is very theoretical and disconnected from the compromises
and bounded choices facing activists day-to-day.  The upshot of that is that
concrete activists are either dismissed as "sell-outs" without reference to
the consequential options they faced, or the successes made within those
choices are dissmissed as irrelevant.

Yes, a left perspective has to critique the narrowing of political choices
created by hegemonic racist capitalism, but a lot of activists just look at
the theorists and say, tell me something I didn't know (and use fewer
three-dollar words).  What I wish LBO did was use a broader perspective to
actually map out longer-term options to challenge that narrowing of choices.
Intellectuals should not use their relative disengagement from day-to-day
struggle just to critique but should use that luxury to try to envision not
the end goals but the ways to circumvent those contraints on the broader
strategic map.

My main critique of third party folks is that I have heard a roadmap of how
they get from modest success at the local level past the point of cooptation
as they attain enough power to have something to lose, and therefore can be
subject to political bribery. (See Benie Sanders and committee assignments
and Oakland's Audie Bock).  Revolutionary change is a multi-round strategic
endeavor, yet there is little serious discussion on LBO of articulating the
steps to make each round successful-- or even what the rounds of change are
needed.

That would be of use to activists if it was compelling.

-- Nathan Newman


>At 6:25 PM -0400 7/29/02, John Halle wrote:
>>[How does John Halle know that listmembers' engagement with "the
>>movement" is "exclusively literary"? I'm guessing that quite a few
>>subscribers are quite active in nonliterary ways. - DH]
>
>John Halle is guessing (or at least suggesting) that the proportion
>of purely literary versus organizational energies undertaken by
>participants on this list is excessively weighted towards the
>former. The terrabytes of neo-Marxist minutiae on the LBO archive
>(the utility of which, from an organizing standpoint is limited, to
>put it mildly)  constitute a strong argument for this position.
>
>He could be convinced, I suppose, that more of this verbiage than he
>is currently willing to admit serves to advance progressive
>politics. He could also convinced, more easily, that attempting to
>organize within the Green Party is not the most effective use of
>progressive energies.
>
>But to deny the essential fact of the matter and to deny that the
>despair at the futility of leftist organizations frequently attested
>to here is not a predictable consequence of this imbalance seems to
>him shortsighted.