[Marxism] The anti-war left and the oppressed communities (was: Camejo and Shawki/ISO and so it goes...

["Lou Paulsen" <Loupaulsen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Joe writes,

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.

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?

- - - - - - - - - - -

Me:

You are raising some valid points about the importance of the emergence of
revolutionary leadership from the oppressed communities, and about the
importance of dealing with the war at home as well as the war abroad.

I just think you go too far, possibly from lack of information, if you
assert that everyone in the socialist parties, without exception, has failed
to see these points before now.  I can mostly speak only for my own party
and things I know about personally; others may have other data.

To start off, you appear to be assuming that every left group - including my
own party, I suppose - is a "white Left group".  It's really not correct to
bleach us all with the same brush in that fashion.  The idea that comrades
of oppressed nationalities should exercise leadership at all levels of the
revolutionary party has been central to our own practice in WWP for years,
and it might be true for other parties as well.  Half of the members of our
secretariat are not white.  Our candidates for office are not white.  The
writers for our paper are of all nationalities.  Anyone who thinks this is
tokenism is quite mistaken.

In any case, in Chicago, I can think of several other left groups that enjoy
some credibility in the Black community and other oppressed communities.
The RCP has a history of organizing in public housing projects.  The ISO has
done a lot of work against the death penalty and police torture.  The
struggles against police brutality and other forms of repression have gone
on pretty much in conjunction with the antiwar movement.  And while we are
discussing the oppressed communities, we really can't forget the
Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and South Asian communities which have been the
targets of intimidation, arrests, "disappearances", deportations, and state
terror for years now.  I think the left parties have been pretty much united
in opposing this aspect of the war at home and linking that struggle with
antiwar work.

Next, you mention the MWM as an example of the kind of emerging leadership
you want to see.  You're quite correct, or in agreement with me, anyway,
about the significance of the MWM.  But if you look through the material on
the WWP website (www.workers.org) , you can see that we haven't been blind
to that significance either and have been devoting a lot of resources to
helping advance the MWM.

You take the left to task for ignoring the needs of the workers and
oppressed here and focusing exclusively on the Iraq war.  Of course we have
to be internationalists, as Malcolm X said, and to come to the defense of
victims of our own imperialist government.  We also have to organize in
defense of the workers and oppressed here, and I agree that it is a bad
mentality to ignore that or separate one from the other, but not everyone
has that mentality.  Look at the work that was done by ANSWER in Los Angeles
in support of the supermarket workers' strike, for example.  In fact, if you
are taking the MWM as an example, the MWM leadership did not dismiss the
antiwar movement as irrelevant.  They reached out to the antiwar movement
and to the left and called on it to support the MWM, and some sections of it
responded.  See this website for example:
http://www.antiwar4themillionworkermarch.org

We are perhaps not much in disagreement about the things that need to be
done, but I don't think we are starting from zero as it sounds as if you do.

In the struggle,

Lou Paulsen
Member, WWP, Chicago




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