If one does not believe that it is a problem of the left that it largely exists in a navel-gazing isolated bubble, then, well, I confess I do not know how to move one on that question. My evidence is the left. Our milleu, all around us. Yes, there are working people in Berkeley and poor people in Boston. Yes, most of us on this list work with non-leftists. Do people really extrapolate from those facts to the idea that the left does not have a problem with being an isolated bubble of a political tendency? When I say the position of the left would be improved immensely if 50% of the bay area's leftists were to be deported and scattered about the rest of planet america tomorrow, I'm kidding, but like I said, maybe only 70% kidding. The thought that my generation has fared more poorly with the project of justice and revolution than any other in the past hundred and fifty years disturbs me immensely. Do we really want to go down in history as having weaker game than Daniel DeLeon?
To be honest, I advance no particular strategy of taking industrial jobs or whatever- many groups who did that stuff did some great work (including much of the rank n file labor stuff, and hey, I still read labor notes- they do some good stuff when they talk about actual work they are involved in), some others seem to have been too crazy to make a dent. Or preaching to the unconverted. But I do believe leftists would have a better assessment of the balance of forces, which would better inform their approach, and probably lead to better organizing work, if so many were not bunkered down in their enclaves.
And for the record, I share doug's skepticism of the strategic importance of the rural smalltown south and 'country folk' ('suburban/exurban folk' are far more important, and far more distant from the left's horizon). Its not country-folks I wish we'd focus on engaging with. Its the 98% of the country that ain't us, of whom we need 30% at least to even get out of the garage. Do most of these people have their own contradictions around homophobia, race, gender, the gender binary, imperialism, class, and more? Hell yeah. You bet. Straight homophobes, and in the closet homophobes, and homophobes who love their gay brother. White nurses who say hateful things about the phillipinas they work with, south asian small business owners who hate the black folks who shop at their shoe store, second-generation mexican-americans who support the immigration crackdowns, greek immigrant construction workers who hate muslims, rightist republican white men who drive trucks and lay telephone line and draft blueprints. Anti-choice mormon women. Men who have committed incredible acts of violence in their past. Workers who fight for the boss when their co-workers try to organize a union. Heroic shop steward class warriors who couldn't be more proud of what our troops are doing in Iraq. It comes with the territory.
Doug- I confess, I regard the cumulative accomplishments of the labor movement and community organizations as greater than that of the spartacists and pomo scholars.
Joe- Sorry! I forgot you work for the aft in nyc. You will get a call before I come through next time to secretly soak up the forbidden cosmopolitan fruit.