and later wrote:
> By the way, "centralism" or "the center" is a
metaphor of the sphere or
circle or _the whole_.
Charles Peterson: Yes, thank you. But the remains the issue of whether the whole is the one and only whole. Can you be a part of more than one party? Can there be more than one party?
For better or worse, there is not one "center" in the USA. There are different centers of power within the center (Congress, Executive, Courts). There is federal, state, and local. There are other centers of power based on property. And some lucky people can just skip out if they want to.
When there is just one center, inviolable, there is great danger of abuse of power. Even under the best of circumstances, by the actual "majority". And then, actual so-called "democracies", which are actually "representative democracies" are subject to excessive control by certain people at the top.
So shouldn't minorities have some protected rights? Among those rights might be included freedom of thought, speech, and exit.
Sure, these are "liberal" ideas, not "socialist" ones, per se. I consider myself both. And a believer in limited democracy as well (preferably real, not "representative").
BTW, I have come to define "socialism," including mine, as an ultimate critique of the human tradition of "property". Property is ultimately destructive of human society, which is what we are. And the "environment" too. We need to find and build a better way of organizing our society, but I don't imagine it happening soon (or sooner than our demise, which is quite imaginable).
By this rather open definition (which does not, by itself include "democracy", itself a very complex concept which I now consider orthogonal), I might have to include Stalin, Mao, and Castro as socialists. But I'm distinct from them by being a "liberal democratic socialist."
Meanwhile, I think social democracy (welfare state, keynesian economics, economic democracy) with unions is the best thing we've come up with so far, and we need to preserve and build on that as much as we can. So I'm a reformist also, agreeing with Chomsky that is the way forward.
And to do democratic reform, I think you need to go to where the people actually are, which is why I'm in the Democratic Party, which has the largest base of people who are generally interested in more reform (rather than rolling existing reforms back). (It's not the only answer, pick your poison.) I'm a elected Precinct Chair, which gives me the privilige (FWIW) of voting at Democratic Party meetings and conventions, and trying to help and educate people there. But when the party simply does a "work for our candidate, right or wrong" thing, and a lot of them are very wrong, I'm not for that at all. I only lift my finger when I feel like it. They can kick me out whenever they want, it would be a thankless job if I did what I'm supposed to, though sometimes there are nice parties. I'm also a member or supporter of numerous other organizations and unions. I'd like to organize a DSA chapter, but have been just too lazy. I could never join ISO, democratic centralism and tithe and all, but don't mind seeing them (in Austin) when I can.
Charles Peterson San Antonio, TX
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