Re: A post-October 25 redbaiting and split drive is underway: response to Weinberg

["dmschanoes" <dmschanoes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Maisel" <robinmaisel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Robin Maisel adds his two cents:
________________________________________________________________

Well Robin, let me be the first to offer you 1.9 cents in change.

Imagine my surprise on returning to my home from the demonstration to see
why single issue demonstrations are required when the demonstration I was
just in was not single issue at all, at least not among those actually
demonstrating.  Amazing.  And here I thought this topic was off limits on
the list.  Oh well....

The not quite red thread that runs through all of Robin's arguments is the
repeated mantra  "There is no mass radicalization among workers yet which
can take them out of the orbit of the Democrats and Republicans..."  And I
do mean mantra, because a mantra is a meaningless phrase that when repeated
continuously is supposed to have a comforting influence on the individual.

The short answer to the mantra is "so what?"  What does that have to do with
developing the transition to that radicalization?  Because the task is not
one of "state" or condition, but one of development.    There can be no
development with  the proposed mantra. Repetitionyes.  But development, no,
because nothing inherent to  the conscious demands  of the demonstrations
prefigures the next and necessary steps.

No radicalizaton? Perhaps, but there are a large number of labor based
organizations expressing forthright oppositon to the war.  There are a
signficant number  of   local governments going on record as opposing the
war, the Patriot Act, and the economic measures of the Bush administration.
The fact of the matter is that the connections are already made linking the
war, the economy, the attacks on independent workers' actions, and future
attacks domestic and international.  To not take advantage of that, to not
extrapolate from the current conditions to the next requirements is a denial
of reality and a disavowal of responsibility.

Robin refers several times to the experience of the Vietnam demonstrations.
We debated this back and forth extensively.  Still,  a fundamental fact
remains.  Those demonstrations did not end the war.  Those demonstrations
did not lead to a "radicalization of the working class." And isn't that what
needs to be done?

Another version of the same mantra is repeated in the misinterpretation of
the history of the Russian Revolution.  Somehow the mass actions of workers,
peasants and soldiers in February are  deployed as an argument against
independent class specific demands even when those acts where independent
and class specific.  The demands were "democratic?"  Perhaps, but the
organization was specifically proletarian-- soviets.  So the slogan was
backed up by an exclusive organ of class, and of course, that specific class
content of the organ of power burst the shell of February and unspecific
democracy.

So let's work our way to those organs of independent class power rather than
undifferentiated public opinion.  Step one it seems to me would be having
speakers on the platform who represent those specific class interests--- who
articulate the need to break with the established political parties, and who
say it in just those terms.

If there is another way to get from any  single issue to the real single
issue, capitalism and its replacement, I'd love to hear it.

dms







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