snit snat wrote:
>
>
> "So whenever a community comes to me and asks me for help and says, "We're
> being exploited and discriminated against and shafted in every way; we need
> to organize," what am I going to say? "Sorry, guys, if I help organize you
> to get power and you win, then you'll all become. just like Back of the
> Yards, materialistic and all that,
Try to historicize this. Under what conditions would someone come up to you and say that? I've gotten calls like that, and we (when there was a we) have tried our best to help. We did recover the life of one black student who was being railroaded to prison by a local cop. His family were very appreciative. And that was the end of it. I would do the same under the same conditions, but let us not fool ourselves that this sort of thing (without the conditions I suggest in my whole post) is of any relevance to building a left.
You can't use situations (actual or hypothetical) such as you pose above as a basis for developing organizing theory. Too isolated, too abstract (abstracted from the whole social and political context).
Look, you can't always win. Sometimes do the best you can and you still get beat! Live with it.
Carrol