> There is no view I have so endlessly repeated as the precise view you
> here state as your own. Since 1990 or so my position has been, and I
> begin to state this on marxism in the late '90s and on this list from
> the beginning, that it is incorrect to criticize "the left" for its
> failings for two reasons: a) "The Left" does not exist as a coherent
> force, and hence there is nothing to criticize and b) that the weakness
> of leftists, their inability to form a left, was NOT due to any errors
> on their part a function of the strength of capital. I have moreover a
> number of times used a metaphor from tennis, in which they speak of
> forced and unforced errors, and I have insisted that the errors of
> leftists over the last 35 years have been _forced_ errors, a function of
> what you call "current historical conditions."
The "failure" of the left boils down to a simple explanation.
American leftists have no confidence in themselves and opt for excuses to explain their marginality and powerlessness. They then sit on their asses, by themselves, and don't do anything.
If you look at instances where left wing politics broke through to the mainstream, such as Seattle and the subsequent movement, it was because it was being organized by people who didn't get the memo that they were supposed to be at home crying in their beer.
I spent the day knocking down a ceiling to build our new infoshop. What did you do today?
Chuck