>Thank you. I don't know how many times I've criticized Dems, here and
>elsewhere, in the last couple of months. Even if I took off my shoes I'd
>run out of digits to count them on.
Welp, you could take off your pants and you'd have three more things to count! Zat help?
>>Further, since YOU are so sure that building a left movement must be on
>>the basis of party-building (which, to my knowledge, Doug doesn't seem to
>>advocate),
>
>I'm all for building parties. <...>
>
>And like I said before, it's not for me. I don't have the time or the
>temperament, and it would undermine my credibility as a journalist to be a
>party functionary. But there are many people in the world. That's what a
>division of labor is good for. My strength is in political/economic
>analysis and it semi-popularization. Other people are good at organizing
>and polemicizing.
Well, I should have made myself more clear. You don't seem to insist that everyone must be directly involved in building a left social movement on the _basis_ of party-building _alone_. You don't seem prepared to dismiss anarchists as engaged in either frivolous work or even work that is contrary _to_ party building.
If you're wedded to the party-model as it's been advocated here (as democratic centralism and the need for _one_ party) (and maybe I'm being unfair, I'm trying not to be....), then work outside the party _might_ be found wanting--as not doing enough to build THE party, let alone ANY party.
When you speak about a division of labor, I understand you to be advocating a much broader understanding of how a social movement grows/might grow. Obviously, people who want to _base_ _a_ left social movement on party-building understand the need for a division of labor. So, it's not that they reject a DoL. It's that they are marking a distinction between those who plant seeds and cultivate the sprouts as their vision of party building, and those who prepare the soil for planting as their vision of building left social movement (i am using movement here as bell hooks does in Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center_).
What you're saying is that building _a_ party (planting a seed and cultivating the spout into a flowering, fruit-bearing plant) must be done in soil that needs to be tilled, fertilized, and prepared by others in order for the plant to flourish, nourished by the work of the soil tenders. (*sigh* I miss my garden and I hate this sand!)
Now, being an advocate of party-building doesn't necessarily make you think less highly of those who work in the dirt, but that's what seems to be going on here. Not because Yoshie really believes it, but because it was too tempting a rhetorical slam to pass up.
Which brings me to this:
>Thanks Kel -- nail head hit, and then some. Yoshie is either out of her
>mind, or simply bitter. Based on her posts, I don't know why anyone would
>want to live in her idea of a Just Society, assuming she has one.
>
>DP
Naw. she's just a human being. Yes, it is hard to be an activist, and it's tempting to be upset with people you perceive as not pulling their weight. It's not tempting, actually; it's unavoidable. Still, it's a cul-de-sac, we almost always end up circling around. Sometimes, you gotta ride around the cul-de-sac on your unicycle wearing a fright wig, a bulbous red nose, and pumping an air horn to call attention to yourself a few times before you realize that maybe it's kinda dumb to be surprised when people snicker and point!
K
honk! honk!