[lbo-talk] Short-Term Tactics at Odds with Medium-Term Needs

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Fri Feb 10 17:24:30 PST 2006


John wrote:


> > I'm not opposed to the Maryland bill, or similar efforts.
> > Like I said, you could support that as part of a long-
> > term fight for single-payer. But your disparagement of the
> > only serious solution to the US health care crisis as
> > "theoretical" sounds like pure know-nothingism. There is
> > a real movement for single payer already, and it could get
> > a lot bigger and more serious if organized labor would join
> > it.
>
> This is where I'm skeptical. Where is this "real movement" of which
> you speak? In which states? Who leads it? It's certainly not
> happening on the national level. Conyers' bill is nice, but has no
> chance of passage in the short term -- or even the medium term, if
> the Republicans remain in control of Congress. If every union in
> the country endorsed it -- not only on paper, which is how most
> unions do things, but by mobilizing members -- it would still go
> nowhere, because unions are weak, particularly in politically
> strategic Sunbelt states that are growing in population.
>
> I would definitely join a movement that is serious, and I would
> advocate that the labor movement -- or whoever has influence --
> should push harder for better improvements hopefully leading to
> single-payor where that is possible. But where is that possible?
> These are still questions of strategy and not of principle.

One of the points of doing campaigns like one for single-payer health care is to mobilize many of the rank and file, rather than the wonky few. That in itself will have a salutary political effect, even before winning it. If organized labor were smart, it would pour resources into battleground states like Ohio -- not just in election years, but every year -- beefing up campaigns like SPAN Ohio (cf. <http://spanohio.org/content/view/31/71/> and <http://spanohio.org/ content/view/23/63/>) and educating and employing rank-and-file unionists as volunteer organizers. Spend money and manpower especially in neglected working-class suburbs where folks normally turn to churches rather than unions when they confront problems: <http://www.monthlyreview.org/0106straub.htm>.

What US leftists need to do today is to "Midwesternize" rather than "industrialize."

Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>



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