________________________________ From: c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> To: lbo-talk <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Thursday, July 7, 2011 1:07 PM Subject: [lbo-talk] Response to MG -- Was Poll....
Dissenting Wren
I've been on the receiving end of comments from Carrol that I've considered intemperate or unfair, and so, I suppose, would many others, but that doesn't mean that we get to dismiss his political position with faux-clever one-liners or responses like this one. The first two paragraph here caricatures Carrol's position, the third is one of the dumbest examples of atomistic voluntarism I've come across, and the last is incoherent.
For what it's worth, I think I agree with the core of Carrol's position, which I understand to be the following.
(1) There is no organized left in the United States worth the name (and an unorganized left is no left at all).
^^^^ CB; The organized left in the US is based in the trade union movement, the organizations of oppressed national and racial communities , the women's movement, the gay movement, the green movement, the peace movement It is ultra-left vision that looks past these actually existing movements to an ideal as to what an organized left must be. There is no left electoral party. There is an organized left.
^^^^^
(2) One key task of leftists is to build an organized left (and anyone who knows anything about Carrol knows that he has gone about this seriously for decades).
^^^^^ CB: "Leftists" seek to cultivate and unite the different movements of the left.
^^^^
(3) An organized left cannot be built within or in alliance with the Democratic Party.
^^^^^ CB: The organized left can become the dominant influence in the Democratic Party. This is what happened in the period FDR administration. The New Deal was a left achievement through the Democratic Party. The Johnson administration's Great Society and War on Poverty were the result of left influence in the Democratic Party. The organized left, especially the trade union movement can become the dominant influence in the Democratic Party again.
^^
(4) We do not now have the ability to build mass organizations of the left, so we must attempt to move from our current state of disorganization to a state of minimal organization by recruiting those who are on the periphery of the left. (This does not preclude the possibility that it may be possible, at some unpredictable but not far-off time, to build mass organizations; but since those opportunities are unpredictable, we should now be about the business of building organizations that can take advantage of those opportunities as they present themselves).
^^^^ CB: It would be sort of utopianism and illusion to think that "we" could build general "left" mass organizations outside the actually existing mass organizations of the left - trade unions, civil rights organizations, women's orgs, etc.
^^^^^^^
(5) Leftists will of course throw themselves into a myriad of struggles, whether they belong to left organizations or not. The difference that an organized left can make is that, when mass mobilization occurs - sadly, these days, mostly independently of our efforts - an organized left will intervene not just by throwing more numbers into the struggle, but by attempting to sustain and augment the level of mobilization, in distinction to the Democratic Party's predictable attempt to demobilize and turn the movement into currency for short-term political gain.
^^^^^^^ CB: "Throwing oneself into a myriad of struggles" is a distinctly disorganized approach for organizers. Mass mobilizations these days may be "independent": of Carrol and those who agree with him, but they aren't independent of me and my comrades and fellow activists. Activism in these struggles is the only way to move the organized left more to the left.
^^^^^^
(6) This is the key task for the left we hope to organize because barbarism currently looks like a more likely outcome of the crises of capitalism than does socialism, and if we hope to change that, we should aim to build the capacity to intervene decisively in these "moments of danger" (cp. Benjamin, "On the Concept of History").
^^^^^ CB; Actually in light of mass working class fightback in from London to Athens from Cairo to Wisconsin, right now, the chances of avoiding barbarism are looking much better
Carrol can tell me if I've misinterpreted him, but I don't think I have. His position may not be the correct position, but I think it's a powerful one, and it is minimally a coherent and serious one. It deserves better consideration than it sometimes gets here.
^^^^^ CB: "Powerful" ? It is not uniting and organizing very many people right now, which makes it weak, not powerful. This position should not get better consideration than it gets here. It should be criticized as it is. It is position that misleads leftists.
^
________________________________ From: brad <babscritique at gmail.com> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Tuesday, July 5, 2011 8:01 AM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Response to MG -- Was Poll....
>And my main ARGUMENT or THHESIS is simply that when such fissures appear or seem to appear what leftists do is plung into action, attempting to build on those "successes" (illusory or real). Neither Marv nor Brad seems very interested in the question of WITBD _now_, each in his/her local situation.
>
> Carrol
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