Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> I
> feel like we're back where we were six months ago, though with
> considerably less emotional intensity, with people taking extreme,
> caricatured positions, and unable to listen to anyone on the other
> side.
>
I'm not wholly clear on who the sides are here. Who or what is "the other side"?
I guess it partly depends on what questions one asks. My question from the beginning has been "What are the principles around which we can mobilize the largest number of people in opposition to the current episode in the50-year U.S ware on the peoples of the Middle East?"
Now the debate as it has exploded again in the last week or so on this list seems to be "Who must we exclude from participation in this effort?" That is, some of the participants are, essentially, taking the position stated a few weeks ago on pen-l:
"We have to show no such things. Revolutions are made by people whose backs are against the wall. This amounts to 80 percent of the planet. The main reason they do not break out everywhere is the absence of leadership. The crisis of the 21st century, just as was the case in the 20th century, can be reduced to a crisis of leadership. In the workers camp, this involves creating clear lines of demarcation between those who are fighting for socialism and those who in the name of socialism promote class collaboration."
It is the core principle here, not the subject (revolution) to which it is applied, that interests me. That principle is that the first concern is to exclude rather than include. I think this is fundamentally wrong, whether we are speaking of revolution or of building a mass movement. To focus on establishing "clear lines of demarcation" is to pre-judge the future before that future becomes visible in the present. The opposing principle is "Unite all that can be united." Both principles, _of course_, can dictate the same actual practice under some or many conditions, and both do demand _some_ sort of prevision: neither answers any questions but, rather, each dictates an emphasis in forming the questions to be asked. I prefer the approach of pressing for unity rather than drawing lines. Lines _always_ exist, but they cannot always or even usually be usefully drawn in advance of practice.
Opposition to the U.S. offensive in the mideast and asia is a given. What are the forces that may be united around this goal, and what further principles, if any, must guide that drive for unity?
I think I remember Chuck Munson being quoted by some poster last fall to the effect that if anyone carried an American Flag in _his_ demonstration he would tear it out of the person's and stomp on it. Though my distaste for the American Flag is intense (and though I believe that trying to wrap oneself in the flag will always prove counter-productive), I believe Chuck's principle of exclusion is unacceptable. There is no way to build an anti-war drive without uniting with many many thousands for whom the flag will remain a positive principle. There were, incidentally, a scattering of (u.s.) flags in the ANSWER demonstation. There were far more Palestinian flags, and even more defaced Israeli flags. All, quite correctly, were welcome and not subjected to abuse. I presume it was the same in the A20 demonstration.
A year or two ago Justin and I had a very nasty exchange, started by me I believe in an inappropriate application of the principle of "drawing clear lines of demarcation," and _explicitly_ based on a prediction of what a person holding certain positions in the present would do (or might do) under hypothetical future conditions. One of the results of making the drawing of clear lines of demarcation a point of departure is that it becomes necessary (or at least comes to seem desirable) to _characterize_ persons (or groups). It works as follows: Concept A is necessarily linked to Concept B. Hence if Mary Roe holds Concept A, it is perfectly proper to accuse her of holding Concept B, regardless of anything she might say _or do_. (Hitchens's use of the term "peacenik" is a particularly vulgar instance of this technique, but I am not concerned in this post with those who don't accept my point of departure: resistence to u.s. aggression. Not that I am excluding them; they exclude themselves just as I exclude myself from campaign committees for Al Gore.)
If I were talking about the formation of a party here repudiation of all connections to the Democratic Party would be a principle of unity -- but a Party is not part of this agenda. An anti-war coalition would fall apart, or never come together, if it excluded those who will vote for someone horrible in 2004. (I myself, of course, assume that "Democrat" and "someone horrible" are synonymous terms.) But we have here _two_ groups_ that must not be excluded from our coalition: Democratic Voters _and_ those fundamentally opposed to the DP.
(Incidentally, my assumption is that the formation of revolutionary party presupposes the solid existence of the kind of coalition, in fact coalition of coalitions, which I am exploring here. Revolutionaries not willing and able to work with non-revolutionaries are so much fluff.)
This post has reached 6k in length so I will stop here for now.
Carrol