Wojtek
On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 12:52 PM, Julio Huato <juliohuato at gmail.com> wrote:
> I know some people think it's naive or plain stupid to try to tell the
> U.S. left what its next move should be.
>
> One argument is that these lists are not a proper venue for that.
> These are not public plazas and we're not standing on a soap box
> addressing an eager audience who can make a difference. I disagree.
> I know that the motivations of those who read these posts are diverse.
> I'm not saying this is the only or best place to leverage one's
> ideas. But it's not a bad place to do so. As far as I'm concerned,
> anywhere I can make my case works fine.
>
> Another frequent argument is that there's no such a thing as a U.S.
> left, but splinter groups and organizations with their own agendas and
> dead set frames of mind and vested interests. The reply to this
> argument is that, indeed, that's the U.S. left that exists. Although
> under all sorts of local conditions and circumstances, virtually the
> same description applies to most countries I can think of.
>
> Another reason I hear is that, even if this highly fragmented left
> were to act in concert (a big if), that would still be a very narrow
> segment of the political agency of the country. The effect of the
> left's coordinated action would still be between small and negligible.
> My answer to this is that, the effect of a small U.S. left acting in
> unison depends on (1) the goal it sets out to accomplish and (2) the
> points where it chooses to apply its effort. In principle, with a
> reasoned choice of goals and strategy, the left can make a big
> difference.
>
> Consider the goals the U.S. left should take up currently. There's a
> massive amount of social discontent out there. Economic insecurity
> and the wars are the main sources, and -- for the time being -- they
> appear as constants. It is true that, for reasons that shouldn't
> surprise the left, regular working people do not have a coherent
> theoretical framework to understand the crisis informing their
> actions. In fact, nobody really has that. We're all groping for an
> understanding of current history, using whatever tools we think we
> have at hand. Yet, again, that's what happens everywhere. So, that's
> no reason for passivity.
>
> My point here is that the left can go after fairly ambitious goals,
> e.g. a significant set of reforms involving health care, macroeconomic
> and environmental policies, and ending the wars. Even partial success
> in these areas could help working people in the U.S. achieve higher
> levels of unity and organization. The energy that could propel the
> U.S. left is there, diffuse, but amenable to organization and
> direction.
>
> As far as the points where the left should direct its efforts. One
> can always pull ideas from one's pants, but the logic of the situation
> (if you allow me this figure of speech) dictates focusing on blasting
> Obama's policies, his retreat from the hopes he arose (regardless of
> whether he promised this or that change or people just imagined that)
> -- which, by the way, does not require that he be demonized
> personally.
>
> More importantly, the practical conclusion from attacking Obama's
> policies is that a primary challenge against Obama should be now in
> preparation. The idea here is simple to conceive, but (obviously)
> hard to execute. It consists of isolating Obama, leaving him with the
> support of Wall Street and the political-establishment, but depriving
> him from any significant mass support -- mainly young people,
> organized labor, and African American working people.
>
> We can't avoid the issue of personal leadership. Any political
> challenge against Obama would have to be personified to be serious.
> Frankly, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader, and other
> well-known figures of the left are not up to this task. If we exclude
> miracles, the personification of the primary challenge to Obama -- if
> it's going to emerge -- is most likely to come from inside the
> Democratic Party!
>
> A bunch of people here are going to say, "What? Another Democrat
> again? Don't we learn anything? Democrats are part of the problem."
> Etc. So, basically, we go to square one in the old debate we've had
> here for years. As far as I'm concerned, the Obama fiasco doesn't
> alter my view of how the U.S. left can and should relate to the
> Democrats as a political formation:
>
> http://www.swans.com/library/art11/jhuato01.html.
>
> To paraphrase Marx: The U.S. left makes its own history, but it
> doesn't make it as it pleases. It doesn't make it under ideal
> circumstances, but under the circumstances that actually exist, as
> they emerge from the past. The Democratic Party -- or, more precisely,
> the political and ideological disunity and fragmentation of the U.S.
> working people which is the real basis on which the Democrats stand --
> weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the U.S. left." I'm not
> saying we should just perpetuate things as they were and are. What
> I'm saying is that the process to change things cannot start by
> denying where we currently stand, believing that one can just will its
> way out of it.
>
> IMO, the U.S. left cannot choose to avoid the *in*fighting with the
> Democrats, without making itself irrelevant. There are things the
> U.S. left can choose, but this is not one of them. I don't see an
> alternative, except in the form of a massive waste of political
> energy.
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