my experience with republicans, libertarians, conservatives is that republicans and libertarians are often loathe to be associated with conservatives. many see them as repellant, marginal freaks they must put up with -- much as liberals see radicals, marxists as crazy, embarrassing fringe radicals with whom they must ritually dissociate themselves.
as the conservatives have come to dominate politics, these folks have had to shut up and put up with conservative antics. and they currently don't seem to be able to muster any kind of movement to "take back" the center, to marginalize the fringe wingnuts who they find an embarrassment.
>But on the left that isn't true. For us, liberals -- the wing we want to
>influence -- are as much a defining other as they are for the right. And
>we are for them. We're divided against ourselves internally, in our
>fundamental categories of thought.
i don't think you can undo this opposition. conservatives want to keep the entire system going. they want to go back --they want change* -- to the days before Lincoln, so they are not opposed to change in and of itself.
radicals don't want to preserve the system at all. by definition, liberals are the enemy. that is, any approach to retaining the system by supporting ways to "reform" it are the enemy. As this kind of enemy (as opposed to the enemy of conservativism), you recognize that the *victory* of Liberalism is also its defeat.*
Not to be rude, since I appreciate both of you for your contributions to the list, intelligence, and talent. but both of you, SA and Michael, espouse positions on this list that, in my view, are the positions of a liberal aned to persuade, exactly as is the case here, radicals to *support* Liberals. Or to shame radicals (in SAs case) into not being so dissociated from the causes supported by liberals and progressives.
but we are not here to *support* Liberalism. We are here to kill it. We are not here to modify our radicalism, in order to concede that we need them. We are because Liberalism *needs* us.
On the question of what is to be done, I do not see that as difficult. what is to discuss. It is very simple. Marx outlined it nicely in his letter to Arnold Ruge where Ruge outlined the argument that it was futile to engage in actually existing struggles. Best for the radical to stay out of the nitty gritty details.
Marx explained exactly why we should take sides in electoral struggles, in social movements that were reformist. But he was actually talking about *engagement* with actually existing social movements. You had to take part in those struggles, and then move into "self-clarification" (critical philosophy) mode.
he wasn't saying, engage for the sake of engagement.
he wasn't saying, engage for the sake of not wanting to be unliked.
he wasn't saying, engage for the sake of not wanting to be thought marginal.
he wasn't saying, engage for the sake of advancing their cause, whatever it is, uncriticized.
he was saying engage because you need to be physically, actively engaged *in* struggle to have any understanding of it at all. you have to be engaged *with* other people in order to move into "self-clarification" (critical philosophy) in order to understand and analyze the most advanced, progressive* side in actually existing politics. engage because you want to help that struggle to "transcend itself.
Because you want to kill it. It must transcend itself through the self-clarification. Because its victory is its defeat.
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2000/2000-February/003972.html