[lbo-talk] How to make the Senate a majority rule institutioninone day

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sun Jan 24 06:40:14 PST 2010


O.K. I partly misunderstood Michael's position. This post brings his proposal ut of Never-Never land. I still however have a major disagreement with him. He writes at the end:

"And if you're going to organize over the long haul, it helps to have some very defensible to organize around."

This has _never_, not once, been the core of an effective mass movement. For a mass movement of the sort that would create the necessary public pressure, it is eseential (as Eric Beck recently pointed out) to cast your campaign in terms of a NO!, and the conditon to which no is said must be one that can be defined and explained in a sentence or two at the most. This means that the core of the campaign is agitational, not propaganda or debate. It speaks directly to at least 10,000 or so people _at once_, without being defended or explained, and several thousand of those 10,000 must be willing at once to become, themselves, local leaders of the mobilization drive.

The reason that having something "defensible" is that,prior to the appearance of 100s of tousands in the streets, ect. no one will stop to listen to your reasonable defense. They won't know you exist.

Also, "thelong haul" is irrelevant here. The perod of activity we are talking about is from three to seven years or so. It takes at least three years to become visible even to the narrower public one is aiming at, and aftter seven years or less the forces making the push will begin to 'burn out," lose interest, turn thier attention to some other issue. Andre Gorz explained all this in an essay may still have about the house somplace but cant' find. It was published in the '60s. I remember, roughly, one phrase, "The Workers won't go to the ramparts for 5000 more housing units." He also pointed out that such movements achieve whatever they are going to acheive in around 5 years, so my seven is a bit optimistic about the staying power of a mass movement.

Carrol

P.S. The kind of thing Michael is interested in DOES eventually get attended to and discussed: AMONG THOSE ACTIVE. What creates activists and therefore persons interested in a defensible positon must be much simpler -- not an argument but a call to action.

Michael Pollak wrote:
>
> On Sun, 24 Jan 2010, Joseph Catron wrote:
>
> > Michael, upon rereading this article, it occurs to me Harry Reid could
> > simply call for a floor vote on a health care bill acceptable to 51
> > Senators; declare it passed in violation of Senate Rule 22, on the
> > grounds that the latter's supermajority rule violates the Constitution;
> > and defend the Senate's case in the courts. The courts, of course, will
> > do as they please, but this would, at the very least, beat the hell out
> > of waiting until the 112th Congress begins on January 3, 2011 to do
> > anything, if only because it's something.
>
> Joe, you're leaving out many things, but mostly politics. The Senate will
> do nothing without an virtually unimaginable push from an aggravated and
> organized public, neither your plan nor mine. Getting a big enough push
> to get it done by January 2011 is already quioxtic. And if you're going
> to organize over the long haul, it helps to have some very defensible to
> organize around.
>
> Michael
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