On 2011-07-07, at 2:59 PM, Dissenting Wren wrote:
> Perhaps I should have been clearer that by "left" I mean a political formation whose horizon extends beyond capitalism to socialism (not social democracy). With that clarification made, CB's response to points 1 and 3 below are simply factually incorrect. And with those props removed, his entire argument collapses.
You beat me to it, but I was going to remind Charles that Carrol and yourself do not consider as part of the left anyone professing support for the Democratic party or capitalism, notwithstanding that a growing number of those who currently support both are becoming progressively disillusioned and want to reform each. Thus you turn your backs on great numbers of people opposed to attacks on public sector workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere, and who, among other things, are demanding jobs, mortgage relief, universal medicare, clean energy, reining in the banks, and an end to US wars abroad. What is more decisive for you, however, is that they have not yet jumped to the conclusion that both the DP and capitalism are "unreformable" - that is to say, these poor souls have, as you put it, a limited "horizon" which does not "extend beyond capitalism to socialism (not social democracy)."
This disregards that people radicalize mainly on the basis of their own experience as the failings of their leaders become apparent. Radicals who are in close proximity to them can help this process along, but only insofar as they are willing to be patient and to refrain from exhibiting a condescending attitude to their current values and political choices. That part of the far left which you and Carrol represent may acknowledge the need to reach out to US workers in their unions and other venues, save for the Democratic party, but such gestures as you make are mostly negated because you inevitably signal your condescending hostility to the liberal political consciousness of these activists and their continuing loyalty to the DP and its leadership. I well know the shortcomings of this approach on the basis of my own past experience as a Trotskyist active in the unions and the NDP, which has the same social base and program as the DP. Whatever limited success I may have had in these organizations was always in spite of and not because of my politics, which were very close to what you and Carrol currently espouse. You might want to reflect on why more members of left-wing sects who join unions and other working class organizations abandon their groups than new workers are recruited into them, which is not the direction in which the traffic is expected to go, and which can't entirely be explained away by "objective conditions".