[lbo-talk] Rethinking Liberalism

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 4/26/07, Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
> I'm sorry you feel I distorted your position, Carrol. But I simply don't see
> you as being among those who have "endlessly repeated" that "it is incorrect
> to criticize 'the left' for its failings...that the weakness of leftists,
> their inability to form a left, was NOT due to any errors on their part..."
>
> My strong impression has always been the contrary: that, in fact, you think
> the US left - or, at least the largest part of it - has effectively been
> shilling for the Democrats and thereby reinforcing the illusions of American
> working people in capitalism and imperialism. You've endlessly derided these
> leftists as "ABB'ers" ("anyone but Bush") and if you don't consider them
> treacherous, at best you regard them as hopelessly naive. I have in mind
> contributors to lists like this one; supporters of groups like MoveOn.Org,
> United for Peace and Justice, the Progressive Democrats of America,
> Committees of Correspondence, etc.; activists in the trade unions and social
> movements; and well-known independent radicals like Cindy Sheehan, Noam
> Chomsky, Michael Moore, and Howard Zinn, all of whom have encouraged the
> deep discontent in the Democratic party with both the dangerously reckless
> Bush administration and their own opportunistic leaders who have waffled  on
> Iraq and other major domestic and foreign policy issues. If these leftists
> see electoral contests as an opportunity to strengthen their ties to this
> large antiwar DP constitutency and to help move it forward - which
> necessarily means favouring the likes of Kerry over Bush - you see it as a
> trap and call on them to instead concentrate their fire on those who support
> Democrat politicians ahead of Republican ones.

Leftists in the USA do not add up to an organized Left.  We are very
much like the peasants of France whom Marx criticized in "The
Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon": "potatoes in a sack."
Potatoes in a sack can't hope to seize any political opportunity,
whether to contest or cooperate with the Democratic Party.

If there were an organized Left in the USA, even as electorally small
as the UK SWP and the French LCR*, then, we could talk about which
strategy would make more sense at a given time in the USA.

Even if there were an organized Left in the USA, however, the position
like the LCR's, which I believe is appropriate for the French Left, is
probably untenable in the USA, given that Washington is the hegemon of
the multinational empire whereas Paris isn't.

* <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/besancenot230407.html>
Olivier Besancenot Speaks

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

No candidate owns his votes, and each is obviously free to cast his or
her vote on 6 May.  But, for five years, the LCR [Ligue communiste
révolutionnaire, Revolutionary Communist League] has fought the policy
of Chirac and his Prime Ministers in the street as well as at the
ballot boxes.  It is in this sense that I call on you on 1 May to
demonstrate in all the towns of France for the urgent social measures
that I defended in this campaign and against the antisocial project of
Sarkozy.  Against this arrogant Right, the second round necessarily
takes the form of an anti-Sarkozy referendum for all those who intend
to resist its policy.  On 6 May, we will be on the side of those who
want to prevent Nicolas Sarkozy from attaining the presidency of the
republic.  It is not a matter of supporting Ségolène Royal but voting
against Nicolas Sarkozy.

Confronting this hard Right, the Socialist Party [Parti Socialiste --
PS] and its candidate are indeed not equal to the task.  Throughout
this campaign I proposed redistribution of wealth.  I note that it is
not the project of the PS which is located on the same ground as the
Right accepting liberalism and hailing the profits of big companies.
Even on the ground of patriotism and nationalism, the PS seeks to
compete with the Right, on the ground of patriotism and nationalism.
That is why the LCR's position is not support for Ségolène Royal.

I call on those who recognized themselves in our proposals to regroup,
so that together we can create a force capable of defending them in
social mobilizations.  Whatever presidency emerges from the ballot
boxes on 6 May, it will be necessary to continue to oppose liberal
policies, and the LCR will continue to work toward the broadest
possible unity in the struggles to come.  Then, if Sarkozy is
unfortunately to carry the presidency on 6 May, but also if Ségolène
Royal gets elected, she will know that there is an opposition to her
left and not only to her right.
-- 
Yoshie