Marta Russell wrote:
[Quoting Doug quoting Corn -- the passage below is from Corn:
>
> >>What is your standard? Should the leadership of a movement not be
> >>scrutinized?
I'm reading fragments again in isolation if that bothers anyone, delete.
Corn (and most of the louder critics of ANSWER) doesn't seem to understand that "leadership" as he seems to intend the term simply doesn't exist. The actual leadership of mass movements like this exists in the local communities, not on the speakers' stand in D.C. If or when two or three reasonably principled left parties arise with reasonably large bases of fellow travellers, and assuming those parties are close enough to battle each other in a reasonably principled way, _then_ and only then will there be a leadership that is worth criticizing. Corn's "criticism" overestimates the power of ANSWER and slanders the hundreds of thousands who (both in localities and at the mass demos) are responding.
People simply have to quit thinking like academics or journalists. (I have nothing against either academcis or journalists -- they are essential. But their characteristic ways of thought just don't mesh with the reality of building mass movements.
Jenny's response to Nathan's slander of Nader-voters re black rights shows the difference between someone focused on mass organizing and a a brilliant organizer who is caught in the toils of institutional thinking. Does Nathan have anything to day that doesn't involve slandering anyone who won't bow down to the DP?
Carrol