Similarly for Political Chomsky, the TP is not something that is produced by the conjuncture but is a mistake, a misrecognition of the situation and bad consciousness of how to respond to it. But this is nutty. The TPers are as valid of a creation of this time as any other movement; there's nothing inherently illogical or incongruent about them. The only reason he thinks "they" can be organized is because he thinks they are mistaken.
As shag has shown better than I can, it's completely idiotic--not to mention at odds with just about every word the guy has ever written--to think that "the left" should be able to overcome by sheer will and organizational efforts the capital-state machine. It's also completely apolitical. According to Chomsky, since politics are not produced but are merely the movement away from or toward our static true nature, the left has nothing to do with collectivity or creation but is just a group of individuals who decide to do things one way and carry out their plan. Since freedom is not produced but is inherited, politics is merely the art of persuasion.
On 5/15/10, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> My concern with all arguments of the form "The left should (should not)
> reach out to this or that sector of the population is that no organized
> left exists to do thie. This is an old song of mine, going back over a
> decade, but it still seems accurate. In the '30s the focus of organizing
> was the point of production. Neighborhood organizing or general appeals
> were auxiliary to this central focus. In the '60s left organizing
> focused on the Black community and on tyoung workers on the college
> campuses. And in both eras there were reasonably strong organizations
> carrying out this work. Neither of these periods is going to be
> repeated: History simply doesn't work like that.
>
> I have argued, however, and this also still seems correct to me, that
> one feature of the '60s left will probably be characteristic of future
> left movements: multiple 'centers." There will not be in the futuree any
> single hegemonic left party. Beyond that negative charactterization I
> don't believe prophecy is possible. We do not know, we do not even have
> reasonable speculations, as to the form of leeft organizing in the next
> upsurge of left activity. In such pereiods arguments about "reaching
> out" to this or that group can be grounded in and immediatrely tested in
> actual attempts by the proponents to _do_ that reaching out. That is,
> during periods of left upsurge there can be a substantial unity of
> thought and action. Small caucuses of larger organizations can at
> least tentatively carry their ideas into practice and formulate their
> thoguht accordingly.,
>
> So far I have seen no article or post of the form, seven of us here have
> found a way to identify the residences occupied by sympathizers with TP
> and we have been conducting a loaded opinion survey through which these
> people disco er the real basis of their attraction to TP and some of
> them have joined our effort.
>
> I hope the preceding paragraph brtistles with enough absurdities to
> illustrate the problem I am posing here.
>
> Carrol
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