[lbo-talk] political surrealism and "postfordist" strategy

[Jim Devine]

Chuck: >The American Left does not offer a culture of connectedness
that alienated Americans can plug into. There is lots of stupid
hostility to any form of "counterculture" and in anarchist circles
"lifestylism." This is incredibly myopic and a recipe for political
marginalization. All great resurgences of the American Left in the
past century were accompanied by cultural movements. And more
recently, the anti-globalization movement attracted many people and
one reason was that the movement provided something to belong to. Even
those pathetic anti-war mobilizations in Washington offer something in
terms of a short-lived community and the empowerment of being with
lots of people who think like you do. <

The Communist Parties and the Social Democratic Parties, where and
when successful, involved a big "infrastructure" of cultural
institutions that encouraged working people to participate in, belong
to, and identify with the movement. On the other hand, the idea of
anarchist organizing anything made be think of John Sayles' "Anarchist
Convention" and giggle. But that's unfair. I'm sure that the CNT/FAI
in Civil War-era Spain also had a cultural infrastructure.


>But Lerner's argument that the Left needs more spirituality is
bollocks. The last thing this religion-saturated country needs is more
religious and spiritual mumbo jumbo. It would be more productive and
effective to build a secular version of Lerner's vision. <

Organizations such as Hamas in Palestine have also created large
cultural infrastructures and public-service organizations, redounding
to their favor in terms of getting popular support. But Chuck is right
that the last thing the US needs is organized religion. I have no
faith at this point that a William Jennings Bryan-type "social gospel"

 (a relatively left-wing religious populism) will come back in a
significant way. I guess that the social gospel movement was largely a
response to the IWW and other forces that were further to the left (as
it were).

Organizations such as Hamas are succeeding because neo-liberalism has
eviscerated the welfare states (or in the US, the "welfare" part of
the warfare-welfare state) and destroyed and/or corrupted leftish
nationalist movements such as Fatah or the Ba'ath Party. Lacking a
welfare state of some kind -- and weak community organizations --
Hamas fills the gap.
--
Jim Devine / Bust Big Brother Bush!

"There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying
to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil." -- Alfred North
Whitehead