Carrol Cox wrote:
> The CPUSA's basic policies have been unchanged for decades, but in the 1950s and 1960s their members and many of their "fellow travelers" and "fronts" were essential in the rise of left movements and many of the events of the '60s. They deserve our honor and respect, whatever our disagreements.
Couldn't agree more with that. They did heroic work in NYC and the South in the 1930s too.
Doug
^^^^^ CB: And they think through our concrete situation better than Ford, Doug and Carrol. It is intellectually arrogant slander to claim the CPUSA's analysis or support for Obama or the DP is evidence of some lower standard of thinking than Doug has or practices, evidence of minds dulled by cyanide or whatever you imply is in the kool-aid. This is that typical red-baiting and slanderous claim that Marxist-Leninists' disciplined Marxist thinking is dogmatic or dull. You imply self-servingly that your mind is better than theirs r. It is not. There is no evidence that the "luminous left" is smarter than the CPUSA thinkers. I should know. I've been reading your stuff for 13 years. You offer no well -thought out alternative to the CPUSA strategy and tactics. No alternative at all, except some phantom "non-electoral" activity. That's evidence of "drinking kool-aid" if anything is. Ford's article is another example of the "left-wing communist" , or immature political analysis of your crowd.
By focusing virtually all criticism on the DP, and none or much less on the Republicans or tea party (which I suppose u think is some counter-intuitive but deep alternative; the product of your subtler minds, no doubt) your _thinking_ is one-sided. You don't take account of the whole of your object of thought. You ignore the elephant in the political living room. The one-sidedness of your thinking is aggravated by systematically failing to discuss positive actions by Democrats; because they fall short of your social democratic ,semi-socialist program. Finally, you ignore where the masses of people and voters are politically. The Democrats are not diverting some radical current among masses or supressing social movements. They are representing relatively accurately the political consciousness and location of those masses. Your overall picture of the political "arena" is a caricature, a cartoon, exaggeratedly focused on the shortcomings of Democrats. As real as those shortcomings are, discussing them unrelated to the whole political field is telling half-truths.
Then with Obama u close your eyes to blue dog Dems and Senate rules which allow minority "vetoes" of things like a public option in healthcare. With decidedly unsubtle arguments you try to blame Obama for deserting the most progressive versions of healthcare reform. You love to blame Obama for not doing something that you know damn well the President can't do without Congress. It also smells of immaturity because, like children, you don't deal with the most unpleasant aspect of the political field, the grossly ugly and scary right-wing.
A further specific expression of this is pretending that Obama can just ignore the clear message, in American political lexicon, of the 2010 elections as rebuff, by the majority , of Obama _from the right_. You pretend as if Obama can just be a sore loser, against American culture, and defy the message of the vote. The American way is for him to compromise with the direction the majority shifted to in the election, whether the vote was insane, white supremacist against Obama, or whatever. He is supposed to "listen". The only response an adult left can give is to undertake the very unpleasant and grueling and uncertain task of building a counter _electoral_ alternative to the tea-Republican victory. The Democratic Party candidates are the only actual vehicle of a potential electoral counter offensive. And there will be all kinds of DP and union betrayals and cop-outs to be overcome in the process. Grow up That's the real world.
Then the notion that there is some non-electoral field of political activity that doesn't ultimately aim to impact elections is fantasizing , again like a child. The only possible such would be armed struggle, which would certainly be a foolish and dangerous tactic to aim for. All the demonstrations and protests of the 1960's civil rights, peace, civil insurrections etc. ultimately only were politically effective in impacting acts by the government. The government was elected officials. So, if the protests had not affected elections, they would not have changed government conduct. All this is pretty obvious. So, it takes fantasizing to project some non-electoral political activity which doesn't ultimately impact elections.
Ignoring the necessity of impacting elections "frees" you'all from the unpleasant, adult task of supporting Democrats.
Typical or your stuff, Ford commits a category error. He mis-translates, confuses, conflates an expression by Jesse Jackson of support for the killing of Bin Laden into support for the "War on Terror". That's an obvious overgeneralization and yellow journalistic headline. Then the article is full of calling Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton names. What tawdry argumentation, _ad hominem_ bullshit for somebody who is supposed to be smarter than the CPUSA, undeluded by his lack of party affiliation. .