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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Michael Dawson wrote:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>"I know of no other left entity, other than
Chomsky, that comes within a mile of rivaling the MR contribution to explaining
the working of capitalism, both at the top and the bottom of the
system."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Since many on this list have mentioned the Monthly
Review amidst a slew of intellectual esoterica, thought I'd take an
opportunistic moment to ask for your inputs for an article I'm trying to
prepare for that publication. I've been encouraged by an MR insider
to do something on the rise and decline of the Labor
Party (LP). That's the thing that a couple of the more advanced
small unions like Oil, Chemical, & Atomic and United Electrical put together
with the dedicated shepherding of the late Tony Mazzocchi (damn, everybody
dies) and was officially born in 1996 by 1400 mostly-union delegates
at Cleveland who created a vision and program clearly to the left of the New
Deal.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I've been mourning the party's decline since
about 2000. Unlike the death mourning for my comrade wife the
following</FONT> <FONT face=Arial size=2>year, my Labor Party mourning is
more a Dylan-type dialectic of "busy being reborn to keep
from dying." My political-intellectual purpose, which seems like an
overwhelming task, is to explain the LP's emergence in the early 90s;
then it's spurt in growth for nearly 10 years, which resulted in union
endorsements technically representing two million members along
with 50 community chapters (at least on paper) spread across the U. S.; and
then a quick decline. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I also hope to contribute to the arguably
inevitable next phase in the development of a left party coming out
of a constantly changing U. S. working class. If better
understood, perhaps past mistakes, omissions, and misunderstandings can be
rectified in later efforts. I have no doubt that the LP was a small
opening salvo in the coming protracted class war. And I have no doubt of
the inherent validity of a working class party, strongly based in unions and the
community.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I'm trying to design an honest and balanced study
that may help us understand the internal dynamics of the LP (it's administration
and organization, the unions, the grass roots, the "left, etc), in the political
economy of the 90s. My data comes from experience (seven years of LP
activism around the country), archives, and interviews. Archivally,
I've found little written on the LP, and I've been hunting a
lot. There was but a tiny flurry of discussion in LBO
archives. Recent books on the labor movement don't reference this most
recent example in the credible history of U. S. labor parties. Maybe that
says partly that the LP was never seen as worth writing about because it never
seriously took off, or that the LP leaders decided against writing
criticism, self-criticism (perhaps analysis is a better term on the current
list) on a political body that's still around. Anyway, I'm
locating and interviewing some of the party's founders and leaders,
some with whom I've had past contact. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Some on this list may have thoughts, references, or
experience they might share either on or off line. I know that
some were close to the LP, at least in spirit. The idea of a labor
party today - in the midst of poor role models abroad, corrupted business
unionists, scorn for third parties, or whatever other negatives that
can quite easily be dredged up - may pre-empt some of your
creative ideas. It's possible your mind may focus
on American exceptionalism or "it wasn't the right historical time,"
and things like that. Try them out if you wish, and I will be
grateful. </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>But I hope you also will think of
things like union-community cooperation, the rank 'n file, the grass roots, and
long range organizing imperatives. Can't say that LBO will win many
awards for its "practical" approach to political economy (the merits of
Canadian coffee don't count). But I'm a simple, practical
man.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Bob Mast</FONT></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>