>
> This is astute. For the left, liberals are the Other, but the same dynamic
> doesn't hold on the right. And this relationship needs to change. That's
> basically what I was trying to get at here:
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20090914/012915.html
[...]
> In other words, what we have now is a popular front in reverse. Instead of
> the radicals being the core and the liberals the outer periphery, as in
> 1935-39 and 1941-45, it's the other way around. Now liberals are the core;
> radicals can choose either to tag along behind, all their shouted caveats
> and objections lost in the wind, or they can march off sullenly to tend
> their marxist garden. As a result, most choose the latter.
>
> So I agree, the left needs to stop thinking of liberals as the Other. But
> that has to come in the context of some movement that would allow the left
> to actually exert some gravitational pull.
Yeah I think you're absolutely right here and in your other post where you say that many (most?) liberals are not set-in-their-ways opponents of the left, but "sincere liberals with social-democratic instincts who are groping for a way of understanding what's going around them".
For the last year or two I've been working within the Greens, despite having a lot of problems with their platform as it is and their leadership. But at the local level and higher-level committees, e-lists, etc., there's a lot of opportunity for discussion and debate. And the fact is that much of the grass-roots is pretty open to radical arguments; they just haven't heard anyone putting them forward before - at least, not for a long time. A lot of what happens comes down to who takes the initiative, I think. And you find other people doing the same thing, alliances start to develop... I guess we don't have too much to show for it yet, but it seems worth a try.
I get the impression the political atmosphere is quite a bit more horrible in the US than it is here though.
Cheers, Mike scandalum.wordpress.com