> On a related point , I just realized yesterday that the line of
> some of the left that "the Democratic Party is the place where
social
> movements go to die" is completely wrong, completely contradicted by
> the
> facts.
Doug: No, it's where they go to accommodate to the existing order.
^^^^ CB: Well, when I mentioned this on Marxmail, somebody sent a quote with the "go to die" phrase. But anyway, no , the Civil Rights Movement did not go to the DP to accommodate to the existing order of Jim Crow either. It successfully abolished the existing order of Jim Crow, with the DP as its main instrument.
I just thought of The Great Society , as Woj mentioned it. That was significantly a help poor people thing, and Black people were/are a disproportionate part of the poor. ML King was launching a poor people's campaign at the time of his death. One of the main actions of Reaganism has been to destroy Great Society programs based on the pitch to racists that they are helping Black people not white people.
The more I think about it, the more false the notion of "going to the DP to die/accommodate".
^^^
Not so minor point: the Christian right is a social movement. Not all
social movements are "progressive."
Doug
^^^^ CB: I don't know if it's minor or major, but on this topic, that particular (anti-) social movement didn't "go to the DP." It went to the RP. Those who have made the "soc movments go to the DP to die/accommodate" idea dogma on these lists aren't talking about right-wing social movements.
What they are doing is substituting their own revolutionary goals for the goals of the people actually in these social _reform_ movements , and then finding that the movement didn't achieve the revolutionary goals that our leftists have assigned to them. It's sort of revolutionary paternalism. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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