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

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Octob1917@xxxxxxx wrote:
> 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.

We would actually be grateful if you stopped attacking the US left,
which operates under very difficult circumstances. It was this nonstop
denigration of the US left that led to Tony Abdo getting the boot from
here. I know from experience how tough it is to belong to a left group.
Although I have major criticisms of the way they operate, I believe that
all of these groups are doing important work. Even the SWP, which I
despise, does some very good trade union work.

> 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.

The left in the USA does not repel workers. They are just largely
ignored. In most factories where radicals operate, they are generally
regarded with bemused indifference.

> 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.

The big question facing us if and such an upsurge occurs is whether the
left will be up to the task. Unless it comes to terms with the
sectarianism and dogmatism that has plagued it in the past, we will
squander our opportunity.

> 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?

No left group has a base of support in any sector of the working class,
white, black or Chicano. This is only partially the left's fault. The
main problem is that we are not in a period of rising class struggle.

> 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.

I have no idea what "revolutionary work" means. This sounds like the
sort of empty phrase-mongering that thankfully appears very infrequently
on Marxmail.


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