[lbo-talk] A Call for Submissions: Michael Harrington Symposium

[Michael McIntyre]

I said it would be unfair, but....Harrington was member of Max Shachtman's
Independent Socialist League when it merged with the Socialist Party in
1958.  Shachtman's faction effectively took over the SP, backing the Vietnam
War.  Harrington finally broke with the Shachtmanites in forming DSOC (now
DSA) in 1973, but by then the damage was done.  Shachtman and his band
renamed the Socialist Party, "Social Democrats USA", an organization that
backed the Scoop Jackson wing of the Democratic Party and eventually came to
feature such luminaries as Jeane Kirkpatrick.  Today's SP is a remnant led
out of the wilderness by David McReynolds.  Yeah, Harrington dissociated
with Shachtman in time to save some honor, but the folks in this tradition
really worth honoring are Hal Draper and his folks.

MM

On Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 3:54 PM, Left-Wing Wacko <leftwingwacko at gmail.com>wrote:


> On Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 12:48 PM, Jim Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > On Sat, 4 Jul 2009 12:21:19 -0700 (PDT) Chris Doss
> > <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> writes:
> > >
> > > What was rotten about his politics? I have a soft spot for the guy.
> >
> >
> > I actually like many of his books but his role as a political activist,
> > especially during the 1960s, left something to be desired.  There
> > was an extensive thread about this on Marxmail around
> > New Year's time.  Some of my posts on this issue include:
> > http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2008w52/msg00145.htm
> > http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2009w00/msg00027.htm
> > http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2009w00/msg00050.htm
> >
> > Jim F.
>
>
> Following Jim's links and the thread on Marxmail, I found this of
> particular
> interest:
>  http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2008w52/msg00129.htm
>
> <http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2008w52/msg00129.htm>
> http://www.tomhayden.com/articlesGA7.htm
>
> <http://www.tomhayden.com/articlesGA7.htm>From Tom Hayden's review of
> Isserman's biography of Harrington, there was his wishy-washyness on the
> Vietnam War (even Jane Fonda did better!), and this item seems to be of
> particular scum-bagishness:
>
> § In 1964 he joined the Democratic Party establishment in favoring a
> compromise that would give two nonvoting seats to the Mississippi Freedom
> Democratic Party while seating the white-only delegation at the Democratic
> convention. Since the expulsion of the segregationist Democrats would have
> achieved the very "political realignment" that Michael preached, the
> compromise was denounced bitterly as a sellout by civil rights activists.
> --
> http://left-wingwacko.blogspot.com/
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