On Sat, 19 Jun 2010 10:55:03 -0600 Bob Morris <bob.morris at gmail.com> writes:
>
> The problem is, you can't have it both ways. Either you build a
> genuine mass
> organization, which means moderates and those not affiliated with
> your group
> have a real say or you use the front group primarily as a recruiting
> tool,
> which means the stated purpose for the group is secondary, and you
> will
> never become a mass organization because you deliberately exclude
> all but
> the true believers.
>
>
Isn't that the problem with most vanguardist parties? It seems to me that Workers World (before the split) and ANSWER had done a reasonably credible job in organizing antiwar protests during the run-up to the Iraq War. Eventually though, they hit a ceiling, and they seem to have been unable and/or unwilling to do what would have been required to expland these protests into a mass movement on the scale of the antiwar movements of forty years ago because that would have meant sharing control with people not affiliated with WW/ANSWER, and like most vanguardist groups, that was something that they were loathe to do.
Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant ____________________________________________________________ Refinance Now 4.0% FIXED! $160,000 Mortgage for $633/mo. Free. No Obligation. Get 4 Quotes! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/4c1d14a0883bb0c26m03vuc