I agree with your last statement, but my sense of realism does not leave me with much optimism. I am glad that you quoted Dos Pasos, because that gives me an opportunity to refer to what I call an ear of the lost opportunity. I believe that every social movement has a window of opportunity available to it for a limited time, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. The labor had its window of opportunity in the late 1800s and early 1990s - when the large scale industrialization and urbanization created geographical concentration of working class people. That geographical concentration was the critical mass needed to spurred a labor movement and then to institutionalize it. This was its window of opportunity, which started to close after the World War II.
In Europe, the labor took advantage of that window of opportunity by creating a set of political institutions (industry-wide unions, labor parties) that gave labor relatively permanent presence in the political power structure.
In the United States, by contrast, that window of opportunity was largely wasted. True, labor movements emerged, but they did not create a permanent institutional structure that would allow it to last. Main reasons were social fragmentation (by race, ethnicity and gender), false perception of upward mobility, and the size and amount of crumbs that were falling from the bosses' tables. As a result, the labor movement in the US was like a shooting star that lights up and vanishes.
With the suburbanization, de-industrialization, identity politics and relentless propaganda - the window of opportunity that the labor once had is lost in the US. Quite frankly, I do not see ANY political or economic force capable of sustaining whatever is left of the New Deal - let alone move the country toward socialism. The privatization of anything from Amtrak to social security is a matter of time - I think by 2010 it will be for the most part completed.
At this point, it does not really matter what "we" (whoever that is) do - "we" may slow that process a bit by throwing sand into the gears of the corporate machinery - which may derail things here and there - but will not stop the process. Even if by some odd chance the system becomes sufficiently derailed - it will most likely follow the trajectory of Weimar Germany rather than that of Russia.
>
> I would like to figure out how we should take the first steps from
here
> and now. Perhaps the third party route is the way to go; perhaps not.
I think a better way to think about is not "first step" but 'exit strategy.' The battle if for the most part over in the United States - the only forms that are likely to evolve is either some form of corporate authoritarianism (if no major crisis occurs) or free fall to populist fascism (if a major crisis brakes the corporate grip on this society). But there is a world outside the United States where the class struggle is raging and its outcome is anything but certain. That calls for an 'exit strategy' - salvage what is worth salvaging and move the struggle elsewhere.
> But almost everyone I see around me on the left seems to be
emotionally
> and single-mindedly committed to what they already think is the truth,
> and refuses to take part in a rational inquiry. Maybe everyone's
> forgotten how to do a rational inquiry; all anyone knows how to do is
> rant and rave, it seems. I don't see anyone who is open-minded and
> skeptical, as I try to be. Perhaps it's about time for me to hang it
> all up and go fishing.
Or get your EU passport if you can. I have mine by virtue by my Polish citizenship, which technically has not expired.
Wojtek