Cheers, ken
________________________________ From: Julio Huato <juliohuato at gmail.com> To: Lbo Talk Lbo Talk <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2011 9:37 AM Subject: [lbo-talk] Donate to Wall Street protesters
Seth wrote:
> Yup. It's funny how there are certain leftists who'll flirt
> with that faction of the right-wing that wants to turn back
> the clock to 1880 as long as it's against whatever the
> current war is. They'd never think to give a pass to some
> apologist for the wars just because he was a liberal New
> Deal-Great Society diehard. It's part of this imperialism-
> centric worldview that I assume comes from the New Left
> generation.
Then Doug added:
> And it can lead you into Yoshie Furuhashi-style apologetics
> for the Iranian, Libyan, and Syrian regimes,
I believe you both know that one thing is the strategic goal of a free society and another thing the tactical needs imposed by the left's existing resources, level of organization, etc., here and now. It's obviously sterile if not counterproductive to counterpose strategy to tactics.
One tactical principle that will stay with us for as long as the eye can see is that of splitting the class enemy or, at the very least, not contributing to their unity. In that sense, it is perfectly legit to encourage Ron Paul on certain issues while opposing him on others. The same principle applies to Obama's incredibly shrinking set of followers. (To see how our adversaries deftly apply this principle, cf. Cheney praise Hillary to undercut Obama.)
In a movement aimed at demanding that the needs of working people, the unemployed, regular house-owners and retirees, etc. be the focus of our economic policy focus rather than on bailing out Wall Street, it'd be sectarian to try and exclude the Ron Paul's followers. And sectarian is bad -- it weakens a movement that needs strength. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk