>So, I put this as an honest question to Chucko, Shane,
>Melvin, Yoshie, and all the intransigents, and I guess
>I used to be one too -- if not practical reformism in
>the context of keeping longer range goals alive as
>aspirations, then what?
Boots for President!
Boots Riley (of The Coup) December 11 2003, 22:57:46 <...>
While I'm on the subject, one of the other criticisms I have of many current revolutionary organizations (I should say here that I used to be in, and on the central committee of, the PLP) is they have taken the old slogan "reform AND revolution" and distorted it into "reform OR revolution". Every single person in the working class is in a daily struggle against the ruling class in order to just buy groceries and pay rent. But they are struggling individually because no one has organized them. This struggle for survival is the first struggle most people are willing to fight, die, and sometimes kill for. It's the reason people sell dope, work three jobs, and steal checks out of mailboxes. It's why songs are written about "bling-bling". It's why we need a new system. These struggles around basic survival could be led by revolutionaries who would use these reform struggles to have victories and losses that would inspire, organize, and teach masses of people lessons about the system much more effectively than the little red book could do alone.
The CPUSA did this in the '20s and '30s and it got them about a million committed party members and countless others who were sympathetic. This strategy had the ruling class actually fearing revolution. When reforms are won with a revolutionary analysis and plan attached people accept the ideas as being connected materially to reality and not just intellectuals wanting to hear themselves. Coming up in Oakland, for instance, I didn't really encounter anti-communism, it was just like "Communism? So? That's cool but I gotta go pay some bills." We need to make union movements that are revolutionary, help and instigate rent strikes, and generally do some fighting and movement building at this level. If we don't, revolutionary organizations will only attract those ALREADY interested in revolution or some kind of counter-culture, which means we attract only a certain "type" of person who then attracts similar types. If we are going to win we need to have campaigns in which the community immediately changes their material situation. This can teach the necessity and possibility of a new kind of system. It will also attract people who embrace the ideas as a material necessity in their lives as opposed to a hypothetical debate.
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"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'