This particular piece provoked some thoughts, though: "Fourth, the same warning applies to the relationship between a movement and individuals who participate as an organized bloc. I very much believe in the necessity of an organic revolutionary left, but groups can only claim authenticity if they give priority to building the struggle and keep no secret agenda from other participants."
It points to what for the lack of better term I call "tragedy of the left." The broadly understood left attracts intellectuals, free thinking spirits, artistic types, egalitarians, visionaries and kindred folk. These are good people, best a society may offer at any given time, but they have one flaw - they are fundamentally incapable of submitting to organized discipline to save their lives. Consequently, any attempt to 'organize the left" is similar to herding cats and likely degenerates into factionalism and in-fighting.
The right has no such problems. It tends to attract people who love to march in goose step, submit to military discipline, and discipline others. They are like intellectual ants - light weight individually, but en masse capable of defeating much larger enemies.
>From that pov, an "organized bloc" on the left is not necessarily a
bad thing. Such blocs need not have mass following - all they need is
the capacity to herd the free-wheeling types that dwell in the left
field. Once these free wheeling types are properly 'herded' - which
does not mean 'expelled' or 'subjected to self-criticism' but rather
'coopted' to the party line - their creative energies will likely
result in mass following.
Wojtek
Wojtek
On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 3:51 PM, Angelus Novus
<fuerdenkommunismus at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> This is gold:
>
> http://socialistworker.org/blog/critical-reading/2011/11/20/mike-davis-advice-occupy-movem
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