[lbo-talk] Nathan again

[Michael McIntyre]

When the antiwar movement can't actually stop the war, we hear:
"So what's the achievement? Tactical successes such as a few big
rallies?
Rallies are means, not achievements.  Why should we praise tactics
that
coincided with AN INCREASE in support for uniltateral war?  The
February
global rallies seemed to make a small untick in opposition but it was
pretty
ephemeral.

The idea that the left will inevitably lose just gives license to this
kind
of justification for failed tactics and a refusal to do analysis on how
to
win."

When unions keep losing ground on union density, we hear:
">And since over 90% of the private-sector working class is no longer
>represented by unions, should we "unite" with the vast majority of
them
>in a union-free environment?

Absolutely-- that's call new union organizing and a range of
community-based
workplace organizing where unionization will be hard to reach for a
number
of years. "

And a couple of side points:
Can we take it that silence is assent...you'll cop to the fact that
those of us critical of Dems do "work with" them?

"Corporate state" and "state corporatism" are not synonyms...not even
close.  Think Philippe Schmitter ("Still the Century of Corporatism?"
Review of Politics, 1974), not James Weinstein.  Arguing, as you do now,
that the threat of labor unrest helped cause the state policies that
caused the surge in union membership in WW2, is very different from your
original claim that competition between the AFL and CIO directly caused
this surge in union membership.  Double standards and changing the
subject seem to be par for the course.