Re: United left presidential slate

[Philip Ferguson <PLF13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In response to Anthony's story of SCULPT in 1984:

I don't for a minute doubt that this is what happened THEN.

Quite a bit of water has flowed under the bridge in the past 16 years
however.  In Britian, there would have been no chance of getting a
united left in 1984 either.  The British RCP tried in 1987 to get the
left together for a united front electoral challenge to Labour and
no-one, other than a few independent leftists (and maybe some
anarchists?) were on for it.  But now, most of the British left groups
are involved, to varying degrees, in the Socialist Alliance and some are
pushing for 100 SA candidates in the next British parliamentary elections.

The left in the imperialist world has been though quite a lot since the
mid-80s, when each group tended to believe it was *it* - *the* party, at
least in embryo, and all it needed to do was accumulate cadre, like
pennies in a jar.  Now even the usually splendidly isolationist British
SWP, which is also by far the largest group, is coming to understand
that it cannot carry on in the same old way.

There is a bit of a new wind blowing through the left.  I'm sure that
the Barnesites would still not get involved, but since they are now a
groupuscle occupying another planet their non-involvement should not be
any problem.  Much of the living, earth-dwelling left, on the other
hand, may well be on for it.  I can't see any reason why the rest of the
US left should be any more congenitally sectarian than the British left.
 So, if the Brits can do it. . . .

At least making the attempt seems a more worthwhile effort than ending
up leaving workers with a Gore-Bush choice or endorsing Nader by default.

Philip Ferguson