[lbo-talk] Credit Where Credit is Due

amadeus amadeus amadeus482000 at yahoo.com
Wed Jan 26 14:00:49 PST 2005


Hi, John, thanks for your response. It would be great if we could get some numbers, or rough estimates on all of these, including anarchists. My frame of reference for the comment below was B.'s questioning the notion of only holding anarchists responsible for applying a blueprint of a post-revolutionary society. So my definition of "radical" referred in that sense to those who envision such a thing, as opposed to organizations which work on important single issues like sweatshops and anti-war. That isn't to say that individuals in the organizations you mention don't envision a post-capitalist world.

As you intimate, many anarchists and reds of all flavors are involved in organizations of the type you have mentioned-- in fact I can't think of any who aren't. (Chuck0, any thoughts?) Thus I'd tend to think the characterization of anarchists, left commies, etc. as "rhetorically radical and militant white youth" as somewhat moot. Also, the association of mobilization, knowledge of theory/rhetoric, and militancy, with being white is very problematic in a racialist sense. It also runs counter to what we know of history.

Also, I think both organizing AND mobilizing seem to me to be "deep and profound" activities, and both will be needed for any fundamental change effected by a Left. Both are needed and we ought to be thinking both "big picture" and "small picture." Organizing without mobilization isn't very "radical" either, and I can't think of any major historical upheavals, where real and palpable changes occurred, which didn't include both.

Anarchists and their similar counterparts have been great at turning out people at labor, anti-sweatshop, anti-war, etc., events, and I'd hate to see these multi-party efforts undermined for the sake of one group or the other laying claim to a particularist definition of who or who isn't the "real left." (I'm not saying that this is what you're doing, John; it's simply a concern of mine.)

If all goes well for the left I think we'll see an emergence of solidarity and networking among all these groups, to an extent much greater than today. We'll get past the point where Marx saw the left becoming divided and sectarian in times of trouble in order preserve and protect itself.

Best, adx --- John Lacny <jlacny at earthlink.net> wrote:


> "amadeus amadeus" writes:
>
> > Whether we like it or not, it is anarchists who
> lead
> > the way in radical organizing, especially among
> youth.
>
> Completely untrue. There are relatively high numbers
> of anarchists among the
> white youth who specialize in protest activities,
> but there is a difference
> between mobilizing and organizing. The best
> militant/radical youth
> organizing is done by youth of color organizations
> like Standing Together to
> Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM) in the Bay
> Area, an organization
> that is now defunct but that left behind promising
> institutions like Third
> Eye. See also predominantly white student groups
> like USAS. More important
> than all of these, of course, are the mass
> organizations of youth where
> radicals are present, including MECHA among Chicano
> students or the
> multiracial United States Student Association.
>
> Rhetorically radical and militant white youth tend
> to get a lot more
> attention than youth doing deeper and more profound
> organizing work,
> particularly among non-white youth. This is why
> youth anarchists get a lot
> of attention, but this doesn't only apply to them.
> For instance, the Campus
> Anti-War Network (CAN), which is an ISO front group,
> might get a lot more
> attention than it deserves even though the National
> Youth and Student Peace
> Coalition (NYSPC) is larger and has more
> representative organizations as its
> members.
>
> Of course, many of these groups are very weak, but
> that's a problem across
> left institutions. The point is that the
> effectiveness of organizers is to
> be measured by the degree to which they organize
> more and more ordinary
> people for effective action, rather than isolating
> themselves in sectarian
> ghettoes. The goal of a radical or revolutionary
> should not be to "convert"
> more people to radicalism, religious-style; it
> should be to put as many
> people into struggle as possible, always maintaining
> that mass perspective.
> This does not mean that I am against educational
> efforts to get more people
> to understand the nature of the system. But what I
> do mean to say is that
> radicals should inevitably end up leaders in a MUCH
> larger milieu of people
> who are less consciously "radical" than they are; if
> instead they spend
> their time talking only to eachother, and maybe
> getting really good at the
> logistical planning of protests or "actions"
> involving a few hundred people
> at most, then I don't think they're doing their job,
> nor frankly do I think
> that's very "radical" at all, objectively speaking.
>
>
> > Actually, make that any type of left organizing.
>
> This is even less true. Go around to anybody doing
> real left organizing
> today -- really improving people's lives by winning
> victories, including by
> moving legislation or at least blocking bad
> legislation, and above all
> organizing more and more oppressed people to win
> power -- in the remaining
> poor people's organizations and the shoestring
> non-profits; the workers'
> centers; the union movement; the immigrant rights
> organizing; local
> environmental justice and anti-toxics organizing (as
> opposed to
> predominantly white
> back-to-the-land-and-save-the-tress sort of
> environmentalism) -- and how many anarchists are you
> going to meet? A few
> here and there, but for the most part these
> organizers are going to have
> less than fully-defined ideologies, some (too many,
> probably) will cling to
> the Alinskyite ideological conceit of being
> "non-ideological" -- and to the
> extent you find people with a well-defined
> ideological framework, I think
> you will find more socialists and even M-Ls than you
> will find anarchists or
> "anti-authoritarians," and in some sectors (unions
> and workers' centers
> especially) this will be overwhelmingly so.
>
> Of course, nearly all of these organizations are
> small and weak, and even
> the stronger ones are under relentless attack in the
> Bush era. But for
> better or worse, they ARE the US left.
>
>
> - - - - - - - - - -
> John Lacny-
> http://www.johnlacny.com
>
> Tell no lies, claim no easy victories
>
> ___________________________________
>
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>

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