"there is no we on the left"- That is kind of the point. Why is there no we? Could it be because we purge anyone who doesn't have the exact same views as us on every single issue? Could it be because we talk about those on the right and in the center as having unmovable positions, which just validates our understanding and fuels our desires to do more of nothing? Could it be because we are actually wrong about some things? Or is everyone else wrong and we/you are the only one who is correct? Continually claiming that there is no left and that there are parts of society which will never be moved to any other position- as if it is a natural occurrence that cannot change, and is not always changing, open, fluid, reproduced continually- appears as a means of self delusion as to the correctness of ones position and as a validation of ones inactivity to actually induce change.
This is all to ignore the fact that left and right as commonly understood is on a political spectrum and not defined by the presence of a movement, small, big, organized or otherwise. It is also to ignore the fact that your understanding of said political spectrum with in a society appears to reproduce the Thatcherite motto that 'there is no society only individual people'. Therefore, there is a left and we can say we when addressing it. The very nature of most of my posts on this list is based in an attempt to do the very thing that you claim is necessary: to crystallize the left into a coherent social force. You may be correct and this is probably not the proper space for such pursuits- seems more a space to do the opposite and reconfirm that there is no use.
Brad
> There are 3000 million people in the United States. There is no
> organized left. There is not even a loose or unofficial coalition of
> leftis groups in the U.S.
>
> Therefore posts which say "we" should or should not do this or that are
> serious nonsense. They seriously obscure the political reality of the
> United States at the present time.
>
> Pure chat is always legitimate.
>
> So what, in material reality, to say that "we" or "the left" should
> engage this or that more or less visible group among that 300 million? I
> mean, what are we talking about. Are people saying, for example, that if
> one is a leftists, one should spend one or two or x hours a week
> knocking on doors and when they opne saying, Are you a teabagger? and if
> the person says yes, say "I want to seriously engage with you."
>
> Or does it mean, printing a one-page leaflet, and stand on a corner
> passing it out -- the leaflet would say, "If you are a teabagger I want
> to serioulsy engage with you.
>
> What does it mean in terms of action. And if it doesn't mean action,
> what does it mean.
>
> And do you mean that instead of searching out the half a million people
> in the U.S. who have negative feelings about the war and more or less
> positive feelings about public medical care we should talk to each other
> about teabaggers?
>
> There are more than enough people in the U.S. whose passive opinions are
> rather far left to make a large public splash, potentially affect some
> public policy, if they were to achieve any sort of coherence as an
> actual "we." Why is no one interesed in them?
>
> Incidentally, there is and will remain a solid far-right core and there
> is and will remain a substantial number of close sympathizers on the
> right that any time there ia a provocation (like, for example, a Black
> president, and anyone has a clever idea, they can be instantly mobilized
> because the media will help them and billionaires will help them and it
> doesn't take any damn organizing skill at all. And if leftists keep
> agonizing over that core onthe right, then leftists will be wasting
> their time. It is not going to get worse than tht core except under
> extrordfinary conditons, and nothing leftists, organized or unorganized,
> can do will decrease that core or change it. It is simply part of the
> social landscape you have to live with without going apeshit about it.
>
> Carrol
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 15
> Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 13:45:44 -0500
> From: Bhaskar Sunkara <bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com>
> Subject: [lbo-talk] Peter Frase on basic income and "socialist
> blueprints"
> To: lbo-talk <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Message-ID:
> <bee7ff781002091045k4f04a72aib61ce1debc4e2d1 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
>
> http://theactivist.org/blog/do-they-owe-us-a-living
> <http://theactivist.org/blog/do-they-owe-us-a-living>
> Serious debate about our visions for the future is always welcome, so it?s
> nice to see Jason
> Schulman<http://theactivist.org/blog/the-economics-of-socialism>
> and David Schweickart<
> http://theactivist.org/blog/on-economic-democracy-a-reply-to-jason-schulman
> >
> debating <
> http://theactivist.org/blog/in-defense-of-participatory-planning>
> ?market
> socialism? and related things on this site. I don?t have a lot more to add
> about formal models of the socialist economy, because frankly I?m not all
> that interested in them. Schemes for socialist economies?whether market or
> planned or whatever?tend to come off as a a bit of an exercise in what Marx
> derisively referred to as ?writing recipes for the kitchens of the
> future<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm>.?
> Trying to predict exactly what socialism will look like is foolhardy?and
> moreover anti-democratic, since it pre-empts the actions and decisions of
> the actual masses who will have to make a post-capitalist world happen.
>
> So while these thought experiments about alternative economic models can be
> useful in clarifying our principles, I don?t think we need to take the
> details all that seriously. Rather than trying to draw up a detailed
> blueprint of a socialist economy, I prefer to think in terms of what Andre
> Gorz called ?non-reformist
> reforms?<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-reformist_Reform>:
> changes to the system that can be implemented under capitalism, but which
> set the stage for further radical transformations. And I want to highlight
> one particular such reform that?s associated with Gorz, and which commenter
> R. Burke brings up in the comments of Jason?s recent
> post<http://theactivist.org/blog/in-defense-of-participatory-planning>:
> the guaranteed minimum income, or ?Universal Basic
> Income<http://bostonreview.net/BR25.5/vanparijs.html>?
> as it?s sometimes called.
>
> [...] http://theactivist.org/blog/do-they-owe-us-a-living
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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>
> End of lbo-talk Digest, Vol 1128, Issue 2
> *****************************************
>
-- Brad A. Bauerly PhD Candidate Political Science York University Toronto, Canada 647-345-2072 bauerly at yorku.ca