Marvin Gandall wrote:
>
> As many
> on the list have pointed out over the past week, a US left won't be built
> around foreign policy issues alone or even primarily; it has to arise
> organically from within around domestic ones affecting the material
> interests of the mass of the US population.
Eventually, yes. But there must be builders. And leftists who do not confront the chief imperial hegemon within the u.s. will never build anything around any domestic issue either.
> Exhortations to the masses to
> break with the DP
That is not the point. The point is that so many leftists (socialists) go on _urging the masses to SUPPORT the DP_. I've never objected to the "masses" who vote for the DP. I've objected to activists and/or intellectuals of the left who encourage this state of affairs. A mass movement, to begin with, will be made up mostly of people who, if they vote, vote for the DP. At some point that needs to be challenged, but that is not my present concern.
For over a century every single promising mass movement of the left (both those that took mostly non-electoral form and those that tried to incorporate electoral work) have been absorbed and destroyed by the DP.
Incidentally, here's part of a recipe for DP success in the current New Yorker:
*****To overcome these structural disadvantages, the Democrats’ campaign approach needs to be broad and bold. Energy: The Republicans have made America more dependent on foreign oil while gas prices are skyrocketing; the Democrats will push for energy independence. Health care: The Republicans have allowed private companies to eliminate choice while costs go up and millions of Americans lack insurance; the Democrats will enact national coverage that restores choice and holds down costs. Taxes: The Republicans have shifted the burden from the top to the middle; the Democrats will reverse that trend, and will end the Administration’s ruinous fiscal policies. National security: Republican incompetence has squandered our power abroad and failed to make us more secure at home, as the country learned after Katrina; the Democrats will rebuild the armed forces—making it at least possible for the Iraq insurgency to be defeated—and bring competence to homeland security.****
My initial post was written rapidly, as a point of departure. But any serious left political thinking has to start by explaining what is becoming pretty obvious: The U.S. Ruling Class is overwhelmingly committed to this military adventure in Iraq. It was ALWAYS part of u.s. policy since the collapse of the USSR. The Gulf War had as its primary purpose the permanent stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia. (Kissinger is on record as seeing this as a primary u.s. policy objective.) That failed because it was politically impossible. Clinton, not Bush, began the SEcond Gulf War with the sanctions and the bombing. Bush may have fumbled, but his policy in its aims was a pure continution of established u.s. policy. The whole world needs to fight that policy.
And heaping scorn on Bush, in whining about Halliburton, in habitual reference to the "Repugs," in endlessly accusing the DP of "cowardice" or "bad strategy," leftists who should know better are deflecting the struggle from the main enemy to side issues.
> because of its pusillanimity over Iraq
I DIDN'T SAY THAT. I claim that the DP IS NOT PUSILLANIMOUS. They are courageous, and they are going to stick to principle on this, whether it wins or loses elections. They are just as determined as Bush, probably MORE determined, to stay the course in Iraq. Their only differences with Bush on Iraq are matters of competence, not principle.
That's why I get so pissed off at people on this list endlessly telling stories about Bush incompetence or Bush corruption or Bush this or that. It deflects from understanding what is going on.
Working out a strategy and tactics depends on seeing clearly what is. What is is that there is no difference of principle between the DP & Bush on Iraq and U.S. imperial policy. I don't know what the strategy should be. But I do know that we have to build a left that can debate strategy and tactics on the basis of clearheaded understanding of what the U.S. is.
Carrol
might well resonate
> with disaffected Democrats and independents, but it won't be sufficient to
> cause a rupture until the DP is tested and found wanting in response to
> deteriorating conditions at home.