>thanks, Michael ... i guess. i'd say hicks/horowitz and cooper makes
three.
Thus proving Hicks point.
I have serious disagreements with Cooper over issues like Pacifica and other articles he writes. But anyone who would place Cooper in the Horowitz camp is delusional.
Why is it so hard to accept that folks on the left have different interpretations of where we are politically, what is takes to get to where we want to go, and may have different views on what needs to be done-- yet share basic values on which we should be able to align despite those differences.
There is the oddest intolerance on the Left for those who differ with them tactically, while folks will align opportunistically with people they know have wretched long-term goals and values, but who happen to share short-term tactical affinity. It is just the strangest fixation on tactics while ignoring the differing ways people have in pursuing the same basic values.
Chuck O and I probably disagee tactically with each other on almost everything, but I know we generally share the same values. He and I will kick each other to the wall over differing views on what is sane and effective ways to promote global justice, but that doesn't mean that we can't recognize that basic set of shared values.
People find my qualified defense of progressive Democrats appalling but then so do a lot of more moderate folks who hear my qualified defense of street anarchists. I am pretty catholic in how I define "the Left" since I do based on values and objectives, not particular tactics or how much compromise or militant action each person feels is tactically warranted. Sure, tactical compromise or tactical extremism verge into crass self-interest and adrenaline-fueled self-indulgence respectively, but that just makes the need for clear intellectual engagement to sort them out more important, since friends and enemies can't be identified by the easy markers a lot of progressives want to use.
Doug mentioned Kucinich's anti-abortion stance. I'm not sure I could ever support him for President with that position, given perfectly good progressives who are pro-abortion, but that doesn't mean I don't consider him a fellow progressive, even if he takes the wrong view on when life exists. The question is rarely what someone's position is, since people can always end up with "heresy" on a particular issue for all sorts of interesting reasons, but what motivates their position. If someone really is "pro-life" because they care for all defenseless creatures and see a fetus in that class, and combine that position with a heartfelt commitment to equality for women in all other aspects of their politics, I just don't see that issue as warranting voting them off the progressive island. Same applies to almost any individual position-- folks who hate unions because of the history of some unions racist past I understand even if they are mistaken in their overall understanding of the role of unions in my view. But that is where internal progressive discussion should begin, not end.
-- Nathan Newman