Re: [Marxism] Camejo and Shawki/ISO and so it goes...

[Josh Saxe <joshsaxe@xxxxxxxxx>]

> I'm baffled by this statement, to be honest. If you could enumerate for me
> anything of substance the US Left is doing, or has done recently, to offer any
> meaningful resistance to the ongoing assaults by the ruling class at home
> and/or abroad I would be grateful.

I am part of a very small group called Labor's Militant Voice:
http://www.laborsmilitantvoice.com/.  We recently organized a
successful campaign to stop a few hundred families on Section 8
housing from getting evicted through a campaign of militant
demonstrations and direct action.  Down here in L.A. me and another
comrade along with a group at a community college are organizing
against a racist business, we helped a group of undocumented grocery
workers *try* to organize, and helped build for an immigrant rights
march in an immigrant neighborhood.  I'm sure other people can furnish
other examples, but how about you (I'm not being sarcastic)?  I've
always thought it might be constructive to discuss the nuts and bolts
of actual organizing on this list to a greater degree.

> There is absolutely no militancy here, nobody risks anything, and that in the
> end is what it takes. I say it again, the organised Left in the US has
> succeeded only in repelling workers, due in large part to an intellectual 
> snobbery
> responsible for substituting paternalism for solidarity. This talk about
> inserting revolutionaries into factories, etc., is just puerile, romantic 
> nonsense;
> as if that could even be considered given the reality of the present state of
> the US Left and its lack of coherence and, again, militancy.

What do you want us to risk?  I will risk whatever is necessary,
please, first explain what "risking" is and then tell me how it will
advance the movement and if I'm convinced, I promise I'll do it.  As
for militancy, what are you talking about, can you tell us how we can
be more militant?  I disagree that we've repelled workers, but I agree
with your thrust that building roots in working class communities
should be a priority.

> The only hope is a new formation arising out of the nascent MWM movement or
> an organic leadership arising out of the oppressed communities. The potential
> for revolutionary consciousness is already there, reflected in the amount of
> resources and energy the state expends in colonising black and Latino youth, 
> in
> keeping blacks on the bottom rung of the economic ladder, and in attacking and
> destroying anything approaching unity in those communities for fear of where
> it might lead.

What do you mean by organic?  If it means developing outside of
contact with the organized left, that means there's nothing for us to
do there, so you are recommending we throw ourselves into the "nascent
MWM movement", which is "the only hope."  Do you really mean this?
Aren't there other ways to intervene?  Just living in a working class
community I know there are many ways we could organize a fight - but
it's really tough, also, and organizing has to be balanced with
building a revolutionary core, both those tasks are really really hard
in this period.  People, by and large, don't want to fight.  We have
to drag them.  Even one group I know that throws almost all its
resources into working class work has come up with almost nothing
after a long long period.

> By concentrating on international issues, the US Left have ipso facto
> abandoned the struggle at home. Calling demos around the occupation of Iraq 
> while
> ignoring the ongoing occupation of Compton and Harlem, etc., is demonstrative 
> of
> a subconscious chauvinism and elitism. No white Left group enjoys any
> credibility in any black community, not one. Surely it is prudent to ask why?

My organization enjoys credibility in working class communities who we
have fought for, for example, the mostly black community where we
organized opposition to the Section 8 cuts.

> Until this changes I'm convinced that in this country bourgeois campaigns for
> reformists electoral candidates like Ralph Nader will continue to masquerade
> as revolutionary work.

Joe it would be more constructive to offer ways forward, it seems like
you are just trying to tear people down.  I think a lot of people on
this list actually are serious activists looking for a way forward.  I
thought the point of this list as a political project was to try to
open dialogue and avoid waxing indignant, heroic, moralistic,
outraged, etc, when we disagree.  I can tell you that I am often
shocked and disgusted with arguments put forward on this list, but the
point is to swallow our pride and just try to talk, I think.  We can't
judge one another by some text on a screen, we can only digest and
discuss the ideas - judging comes out of actually working and fighting
with someone, let's save our rage for our comrades who come late to
meetings and don't come through with their assignments =)
Comradely
Josh
>
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