<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title></title> </head> <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff"> <div class="moz-text-plain" wrap="true" graphical-quote="true" style="font-family: -moz-fixed; font-size: 11px;" lang="x-western"> <pre wrap="">Answer: Because this is North America (but to be fair, we must exclude 'real countries' such as Canada). The political culture is very primitive and parochial across the spectrum - it would be unfair to single out Leninists, as is unfortunately too often done on LBO. But being an Americentric site, LBO is also invariably afflicted by the same backwardsness, a backwardness it hides from itself by framing up cardboard cutout caricatures for ritual slamdowns. However good faith is assumed here in that Ulhas, if not Pugliese, actually want there to be politically sophisticted, globally-minded Leninists in North America. Hear, hear. But Pugliese is correct on this march. It is bound to be a flop, or at best a non-event, under conditions of high degree of demoralization of the Left, including the labor and socialist left, under the influence of the Democratic Party - and this atmosphere of demoralization also includes those with formal positions of opposition to the Democrats. To all those who plan to pull the lever for Kerry out there, congratulations on a sabotage job well done. I knew you could do it. This has nothing to do with "timing" though. Under much better conditions, a militant labor march right before the elections would be excellent timing, especially if it could embarrass the Democrats and labor tops - as did Seattle. To cut Doug some slack, it is assumed that "timing" here refers to the fact that under present conditions, no mass march could occur without labor bureaucrat approval, and that approval isn't going to be granted before any election. Correct. But how much value is there in yet another lifeless union top-led robotic assembly - like the 'Solidarity marches' I witnessed in the 1980's? So, regardless of timing, a big yawn. Speaking of the parochial: in any case, militant, but still pure and simple, trade unionism will not be capable of finding a path to political independence by itself. It needs to meet up with a radicalized movement of leftwing activists trying to find that same road, who come from outside the formal labor movement and, by being from the outside, break up the narrowness that adheres to pure and simple trade unionism (and to the socialist sects of all stripes who long ago adapted themselves to this narrow political life). Seattle showed the potential for this convergence. Weren't those the halcyon days (Nov. 1999), before the fascist politician Ariel Sharon showed up with his jackbooted stormtroopers (Sept. 2000) to begin the generation of the foul atmosphere we all swim in today. But since 9/11 and the Iraq war, it has been precisely this millieu of radicalized independent leftists that has fallen into deep political confusion and largely vacated the scene, especially in the U.S., leaving Medea Benjamin, Chomsky and the rest free to pull the lever for Kerry. -Brad Mayer </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap=""><span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>Funny how list leninoids (who in contrast to a real strength of <span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>Comrade Ulyanov had a superb grasp of the real balance of class <span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>and ideological forces on the terrain) </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> My impressions about North American "Leninists" are based on mailing lists. But I have never been able to understand why such a significant number of them are politically and ideologically so primitive and parochial. Ulhas </pre> </div> </body> </html>