Chuck Grimes wrote:
>
> To which a gradualist like myself might respond... This is the debate I
> think we really should be having.. Dwayne Monroe
>
> -------
>
> I agree. I've been telling myself the same thing for years.
>
> Three years ago, I was arguing for Gore and basically presumed the
> gradualist agenda, against Yoshie and Carrol who were taking something
> like the Leninist line that Kelley quoted. Meanwhile, Doug
> and others were following another gradualist route, making room for
> third party alternatives.
The way the alternatives are being set up is all wrong.
ALL routes are gradualist routes. REPEAT
ALL routes are gradualist routes.
REPEAT IN OTHER WORDS. Revolution is every bit as gradualist as any other route one can choose.
The question is not gradual or fast. The question is what kind of policy (without stupid labels) will achieve two things:
a) have the best chance of improving conditions NOW
b) have at least a minimum chance of creating a decent society EVENTUALLY: NOW for this is simply out of the question.
I maintain that only a core concern with building mass movements outside the electoral process will have, under present conditions, any chance of achieving anything in the electoral realm. Revolutionary movements thrive when they are mostly concerned with improving present conditions. What the hell else can one concretely act on except present conditions.
The main fact about present conditions, and the fact that most strongly conditions everything else, is the presence of U.S. troops in the Middle East. Only a mass movement outside the electoral process can lead to elected officials who will pull those troops out.
And for the present (this changes constantly) only a mass movement against the occupation can provide the context for all the other defensive struggles (reforms) that are so essential NOW.
We did not achieve the Civil Rights Act through electing those favoring it. WE achieved it by a mass, multi-faceted movement. Ditto every other real reform every achieved in the U.S.
Revolution arises out of reform struggles.
To use the current silly terminology: Revolutionaries make better gradualists than the gradualists do.
[Chuck's "route," like the electoral route, has two weaknesses: a) it does nothing now b) it is guaranteed to keep the present system in power for ever.]
It is really impossible to discuss politics if participants keep substituting empty labels for actual discussion of actual conditions and actual possibilities of action.
Carrol
P.S. As far as I can tell, the only people who ever use the word "Lenin" on this list are those who use it to describe a non-existent theory which they can ascribe to any policy they disagree with. It has been years since I used "leninist" or "marxism-leninism" to describe my own politics. I use the word Lenin only in a scholarly context, to give credit for wording that is not my own.