[lbo-talk] Can Politics Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style?

Marvin Gandall marvgandall at videotron.ca
Sun Oct 14 04:20:09 PDT 2007


Yoshie asks:
>
> If it's really the case that we'll have no impact whatsoever no matter
> what we say or do, then we might as well shut up and just watch the
> Iranian, Russian, and other governments handle the problem that is
> clearly beyond us. Is that what you believe?
================================== Of course not. I never suggested that Americans should be passive because they can have no impact on the course of events. You have things backward. It was I who invited you (figuratively) to a demonstration, and it was you who replied that such actions are futile because they would come "too late to stop a major planned invasion of Iran". An attack, if it were to happen, however, might be as much as a year away.

In the meantime, there is a plenty of public alarm at the prospect. I don't know whether demonstrations are being planned to tap into the concern about "Cheney's war", or to fold the newest war threat into the protests over the war in Iraq, but I hope the issue is being pursued in UfPJ and the other antiwar coalitions. It also makes sense for US leftists to encourage the many Americans, mainly rank-and-file Democrats, who are currently working to nominate and elect antiwar candidates at the local, state, and national levels. I don't know very many people on these lists apart from Julio who are doing such work, and he has received more brickbats than plaudits from leftists like yourself for doing so.

The efforts at mobilization have so far been disappointing, but what other avenues are open to the US left apart from demonstrations and political action to engage the American public in any significant way? There are some very good left-wing journalists out there, including yourself and Doug, and a growing network of blogsters and politically conscious Americans linked by internet sites such this one, but the audience for these is still relatively small and fragmented, and the new technology, in any case, would seem to be a support rather than a substitute for the more traditional forms of protest.

I don't see that you are proposing anything more dramatic than what I've sketched above. So I would turn your question back to you: What do you believe can be done? Concretely, that is. Your only comment has been that the left has the moral responsibility to "not allow" the US to operate in the Mideast by "educating Americans" or it "will have failed the Iranian people." That statement is so abstract as to be meaningless. Moreover, it seems to be in contradiction to your other consistent theme - that the US left which you are calling upon to execute this monumental task is a hopeless collection of do-nothings. Square that circle.



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