[lbo-talk] Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[andie nachgeborenen]

I used to repeat these arguments and have even
published them in various places. Now I don't know
what to think or do. It's true that no mass political
party of the left rooted in social movements will
happen if someone doesn't actively created it. It's
also true that no attempt to actively create such a
party has gotten anywhere in the US, for various
specifiable reasons well known to all here, and which
have not changed at all. There is no particular reason
to think that if we keep butting out heads against
that wall, that the wall will break instead of our
heads.  And sometimes, the recent election was in my
opinion an instance, there is a genuine lesser evil. 
Or anyway a greater one.  I am not sure that the
obvious responses, which I can write as well as you,
and have done so, are worth making here. I am just
reporting that it seems to me that we are at an
impasse. It won't last forever, but I do not see a way
out.

jks

--- Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:


> Turbulo at aol.com Turbulo at aol.com, Wed Nov 10
> 08:47:26 PST 2004, 
> [lbo-talk] Re: Everybody Knows...
> >But today's political framework is the cumulative
> result of past 
> >decisions, including the repeated decision of many
> leftists to 
> >support the Democrats as the lesser evil.
> 
> And tomorrow's political framework is the cumulative
> result of 
> actions and inactions today.
> 
> The AnybodyButRepublican politics is basically a
> self-fulfilling 
> prophecy: you are in favor of a mass political party
> rooted in social 
> movements on the left, but you feel others won't go
> for it, so you 
> don't do anything to create it and do everything to
> discourage others 
> from even considering it seriously, and then, voila,
> no mass 
> political party rooted in social movements on the
> left emerges and US 
> politics continues its rightward march -- the
> outcome to which your 
> initial action as well as inaction, multiplied by
> those of others who 
> felt like you, made its contribution.
> 
> >An independent leftist party would enter elections
> not with any hope 
> >of winning at first, but with a view to gainig a
> platform for its 
> >ideas and changing the nature of mass politics over
> the course of 
> >years and decades. Such a party may also consider
> that the road to 
> >change doesn't run exclusively, or even primarily,
> through electoral 
> >politics.
> 
> That's the key.
> 
> John Lacny jlacny at earthlink.net, Wed Nov 10
> 15:44:24 PST 2004:
> >All of which is proof of my point that neither the
> Democrats nor the 
> >Republicans are "parties" in any real sense. They
> are electoral 
> >coalitions that are made up of interest groups that
> are effectively 
> >"parties" in all but name.
> 
> The Democratic Party isn't a "coalition."  If it
> were, each 
> affiliated organization in the coalition would
> democratically select 
> its delegates, and votes of delegates after
> collective debates, 
> weighted by relative sizes of organizations they
> represent, would 
> determine the coalition's political platform, 
> long-term/medium-term/short-term goals, and
> strategies and tactics to 
> achieve them.
> -- 
> Yoshie
> 
> * Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/>
> * Bring Them Home Now!
> <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/>
> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: 
> <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, 
> <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, &
> <http://www.cpanews.org/>
> * Student International Forum:
> <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
> * Committee for Justice in Palestine:
> <http://www.osudivest.org/>
> * Al-Awda-Ohio:
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> 

		
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