Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Nathan Newman wrote:
>
> >For those of us who see neither the "Days of Rage" nor the Bolsheviks as a
> >shining success for the left, the message is don't tolerate stupidity
> >labelled as "leftism."
>
> We'll have to disagree on this one. There was a lot wrong with the
> USSR, but it was a good try, especially at the beginning, and it kept
> the U.S. in check. The world is, on balance, worse in its absence.
>
And it is equally silly to measure the left of the '60s by the few hundred individuals who generated the Days of Rage -- and such credit in the anti-war movement as those silly people had was mostly due to the idiocies of such good Democrats as Mayor Daley and Hubert Humphrey.
And incidentally, there has never been, and never will be, a left surge which does not have its nutty fringes. If "the left" (when we get one) can't survive and flourish while the press is giving most of its attention to the likes of the weathermen or Jerry Rubin, then it won't flourish at all. Various sorts of sectarianism, dogmatism, and ultra-leftism (as well as the sabotage of those who claim the left should tail the DP) are simply part of the terrain on which any left movement must operate.
Carrol
Carrol