Dennis Claxton wrote:
>
> A> Could it be that right now "don't just do something, talk" merits
> more more of our attention?
>
This is probably correct. A possible qualification, though not one that points to doing 'big things.'
Lately I have been remembering more and more, both from what I knew at the time and what I have read or heard since, how as activity rose in the '60s, the 'prints' of the CPUSA were all over it. NOT its central politics and and any of its own major projects, but simply as a 'presence' in so many places. I don't know any of the details of this, but the Civil Rights Movement as it gathered stgeam in the '50s was everywhere 'touched' by either CP members or ex-mebers or long-time fellow travellers. The Free Speech Movement at Berkeley is hard to imagine without the input of both CP members and ex-CP members. (And of course, numerous leaders of the New Left were Red Diaper Babies.)
Now as far as I know, the CP did not, really, do a damn thing from (say) 1945-1060 -- except survive and puddle around! Well, one important exception: It was the backbone of the Wallace Campaign in 1948, and many veterans, CP & non-CP were important in the early stages anyhow of the anti-war movement of the '60s.
I think we are in a period very like the '50s (and lasting rather logner than that interval die). And it very definitely IS NOT BECAUSE LEFTISTS HAVE AMDE MISTAKES. I just got done attackinguse of the word "stupid," but I think I will apply it to any argument that "The Left" coudl have been a significan force in the last 35 years if it had done things right. That is simply bullshit. The weakness or non-existencd of "The Left" since 1975 has been due to one single orver-riding factor: the strength of the U.S. capitalist class.
So in a rought sort of way, I want to offer the CPUSA of the 1950s, impotent, bad politics, and all, as sort of a model for "us." So this does involve some "doing something," though that doing something itself involves mostly just talking, but talking within and around SOME SORT of local group that is at least going through the motions of pushing some goal. The goal doesn't really matter, as long as pursuing it holds together some minimum nunber of people and continues to reach new people evenif most of them drop out after awhile. All the people who launched BNCPJ in October of 2001 have mostly dropped out, but we've added some people (new people in towon) & the remaining core is a bit more committed. We will survive, we will remain minimally visible, we will make and maintnain relations with quaski-left activity around the aread; we'll make and maintain relations with people like us in other Central Illinois cities, and so forth. (And we will do a lot of talking.) And when the issue that triggers a new left usurge appears, Central Illinois activity will not start from scratch as it did for the most part 45 years ago.
So yes, do keep talking, but it is better talk if attached to at least a "real shadow" of doing something.
Carrol