Culture Lab wrote:
>
>
> I guess what I don't understand is what's at stake, for you, if people hold
> those opinions and even act on them by, say, voting for Democrats or, heck,
> even canvassing during election years.
(a) I want as many as possible to commit unreservedly to the task of building local infrastructure for a future mass movement.
(b) While (see below) I am not attacking committed DP members 'at the base,' I don't want leftists who know better to encourage that commitment or work to enhance it. It's one think not to challenge a mass error on tactical/strategic grounds; it's another thing to encourage that error and elaborate defenses of it.
>
> I'm applying to MoveOn right now, btw. I not only need the job, I really
> hope to get it so I can be a fly in Chuck0's KY lube.
There are many good people in MoveOn, and there are many circumstances in which I think it makes sense for people to work with them. Even though MoveOn is a sort of _de facto_ arm of the DP, there is still at times an important difference between de facto & de jure.
>
> Goooooooooooooooo democrats. Push 'em back, Push 'em back, Push 'em
> waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back! (I'm just teasing about the cheerleader routine,
> but I'm serious about the job. Next stop is the military-industrial
> perplex, building Web interfaces for weapons systems!)
My rough and ready line in the sand is that only employment with the actual repressive machinery of the state (police, prisons) declasses you, and in individual cases I might bend on that. People have to live.
Carrol
Various sectors, here and there, of the working class are at some point going to catch their breath from the hurly-burly of the neo-liberal offensive of the last 30 years, and we will desperately need as many local 'cadre' as possible who, while keeping all their connections, have also maintained a non-DP voice in their local work. Gramsci argued that a general staff can raise an army, but that an army can't raise a general staff. I don't _quite_ agree. An army can raise a general staff, but it can't raise all the non-coms needed. Many of them have to be there, trained, experienced, and working when the army starts to rise. There are quiter a few more lurkers than posters on this list. I know that to some of them arguing the positions I argue makes a difference for them.