Re: The Pratt Pack

[boddhisatva <kbevans@xxxxxxxxx>]

                Mr. Mayer,




        You asked:


        "What, CONCRETELY, is the strategy to 'build a
truly independent working class basis..', that would present an
alternative for workers not only to Buchanan, but to the entire existing
bourgeois political regime?"



        First, you have to learn something from your betters.  If Buchanan is
striking a chord with workers qua proletariat, then you had better find out
what that is.  First, I would say that Mr. Godena is not far from the nut.
Pride - not subsumed in the leadership or the commune - is a key factor.
Workers have to see socialism as a way to get their much-needed self-respect
back.  If you don't think that this is needed and important, watch the
capitalists try and exploit it on late-night TV.


        Second - money - workers are much more savvy about money than they
ever have been.  Money is not a dirty word to them, nor should it be.
Socialism has got to show workers how they will make more money and have more
control over a money system that is out of control.


        Third - anger - workers have to be shown how otherwise decent people
who live in nice houses in the suburbs are screwing them, although they may
not, themselves be immoral people (rather, they are incompletely moral).
They have to learn to get angry at these people, that they have been taught
to admire and even to love, in a constructive way.  They must likewise be
shown that the poor people they have been trained to hate are just in need of
their help and willing to stand with them.


        Fourth - ethics - Marxists, in my opinion have to tread lightly on
the ethics and morals issues.  It is not right or productive to combat
Christians, etc. who hold their beliefs, after all, as a boon to the greater
proletariat.  Rather, they have to expand tolerance to include a secular
society, and expand indignation to include Capitalists.




        A labor-left coalition party is the ultimate backbone, with labor
unions the "nerve" of the process.  Labor unions have to lead the way in
militancy and rhetoric.  The social left (no better term come to mind - fems,
greens, reds, local activists) have to alternate as sharp vertebrae and
cushioning disks.  Probably, a mollifier will come out as the leader of this
party - someone along the lines of Dr. King.



        The social left (see above, I need a better term) is already there,
but they are weak on economic issues.  Labor is the missing force.
Consciously socialist labor unionists have to take the economic message to
the people in both a broad political way, and a concrete way.



        I believe that labor has its best chance as rebuilders of the "social
infrastructure" in small-medium communities.   The cities are foul with
capital.







        peace,



                boddhisatva






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