Doug Henwood wrote:
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> Which will get the electricity and water running in Iraq, right?
And Paul wrote yesterday: "The specifics of the mandate and arrangements are key, but these are not things around which one can mobilize a mass movement."
Nothing __NOTHING whatever_ that might be done or said within the struggle to build a mass movement at this time will have any effect whatever, absolutely not effect whatever, on whether or not the electricity and water start running again in Iraq in the next six to twelve months.
Anything that leftists can do or say at the present time can conceivably actually change public policy only in (say) 2005 at the earliest.
So I really don't see what is the usefulness, to anyone, of what Doug is saying here.
Now I said exactly the same thing roughly 32 months ago in reference to getting food and medical supplies to the people of Afghanistan. I was told then that I was merely giving up. But of course all the wails from "practical" leftists in November 2001 did absolutely nothing to help the people of Afghanistan that winter, while the labors of people like Yoshie that time (and in fact some of my own activity at that time) substantively increased the number of people who are now busy talking to others about building a sustainable mass movement that at some point has at least a remote chance of making a difference in the world, in actually saving a few lives in the mideast or elsewhere.
Paul and I probably have differences, perhaps even sharp ones, but such differences are quite secondary to this profound shared viewpoint or point of departure for our political thinking: Build the Mass Movement.
I would like to dream up labels for these two different perspectives within the left. Perhaps we could call Doug's perspective the ChalkBoard Tendency, Paul's perspective the Leaflet Tendency. :-)
Carrol