> to be agitating and organizing within these corrupted unions from within,
> electing out the bureaucratic officials with a radical leadership not
> beholden to the Democratic Party. The old officials will then have their
> capitalist sympathies exposed for everyone to see, so they can be
humiliated
> and ostracized in whatever manner the workers deem appropriate.
>
> Not to say that this wouldn't be a challenge....
Chuck responded: "About as pointless as going to the Democractic Party and "boring from within" to reform it."
David, response: This is exactly the kind of sectarianism to which I was referring. The fact is that there is a real organizational basis for actual workers' parties in unions in the U.S. All the organizing potential, resources from hard-earned dues, and actual people are right there within the deformed workers' organizations, and folks like Chuck just turn their back and declare that all of the sweat and toil of these workers is "pointless", or only to benefit the bosses.
Welfare is a corrupt and deformed system with its own set of fat-cats. Should it just be thrown out the window entirely, as Newt Gingrich and the "New Democrats" suggest?
Schools are hollow mouthpieces for state propaganda, poorly run and lacking support for innovation. Should the idea of education then be regarded as "pointless"?
It is simply wrong to assert that the Democratic Party and rank and file workers represent the same interests. The Democrats represent, and take generous contributions from, the capitalists, i.e. big businesses, banks, domestic industry management and the labor union bureaucracy. Real wages in the US have been stagnant since 1973, regardless of whether national state of affairs has been controlled by Democrats or Republicans. Therefore it is not in the interests of Democrats to demand a shorter working day along with higher wages. It is, however, to the economic advantage of workers to unconditionally demand higher wages for a shorter amount of time on the job-- not because these things would be 'nice to get,' but because they are necessary for survival in an uncertain economy!
Within the bureaucratic union structure, as it exists today, a real possibility and mechanism exists to oust the corrupt leaderships, and win majority party affiliation to a genuinely democratic workers' party. By genuine democracy, I am referring to a large social and economic basis, a mass basis to fight for the political power of the working class. To deny this possibility-- and go out with a bunch of white middle class hoodlums to smash starbucks while petitioning church groups-- is to turn one's nose up in the air in a gesture of sectarian arrogance.
-- d