BklynMagus wrote:
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> The left has to remind people
I think some of Yoshie's recent posts on Iran make the same mistake that Brian makes here.
I agree with what Yoshie has to say about Iran, and I disagree with those who say we should wait and see. It's better in such instances to be wrong and correct later than to give even nominal aid (by silence or academic "wondering") to u.s. attempts at regime change. In fact I agree with Yoshie even without examining "the facts" as they are now knowable; it is enough that we know Iran is under attack by _the chief enemy_ of humanity at this time, the u.s. It is mere egotism or social anxiety that fears being wrong in such instances. I was one of those who at first supported (spoke for) the Khmer Rouge. When I discovred I was wrong, I announced that fact. I was _completely_ correct in my initial support, and feel no embarassment at all about it. I do feel intense embarassment over joining the criticism of Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
Yoshie has been careful to say "leftists should," not "the left should," and that helps but still she is not giving enough consideration to the "state of the left" -- i.e., to our available forces -- in her posts on Iran. Brian here goes further, and fantasizes "A Left" with a huge audience straining to hear its message. A writer in a scholarly journal can assume an audience (small in mere numbers but probably large in terms of those he/she aims at), as can a journalist in the capitalist media. The Left has no such audience given. And the primary task of leftists now, as for the last 20 years, is to somehow create an audience, which means mostly concentrating on recruitment of left activists from the (very small) mass of interested u.s. residents who respond to any call left groups put out, whether for a demo or a movie and discussion.
At some point events will generate a larger, significantly larger, audience for what we have to say, and if we have spent too much time speaking in a corner under the pretence of speaking to a "large audience now" there will not be enough of us nor will we have the organizational basis to speak to that audience when it appears.
Carrol