Re: [Marxism] Michael Moore decline continues

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
>
> I take MM to be saying that the Left is not effective, or not effective
> enough, principally because it conservatively relies on a stock of themes,
> outlooks, languages and symbolisms from a previous generation which are
> inappropriately foisted onto the present. There's some truth in that,
> surely. Here's a few thoughts:

There are quite a few individual leftists in the u.s., many more than at
present we can gather into a collection of interrelating groups to make
a coalition that could properly be referred to as "The Left." But "The
Left" doesn't exist, and the reason for their apparent ineffectiveness
is not their own errors but the strength of capital in the u.s. If you
watch a tennis tournament on tv, you will notiece that the sportscaster
speaks of two kinds of errors, forced errors and unforced errors. The
player can (potentially) do something about the latter, but very little
about the former. The left for nearly 30 years has been in that
position, where almost anything individual leftists (or small groups of
leftists) do fails, not because of their errors but because their
apparent errors are forced. So criticism of faults is merely whining
from the sidelines.

"There's some truth in that. . . ." Jesus! There's some truth in almost
any bloody thing any asshole reels off. What we need, however, are ideas
of how those _hudreds of thousands_ of people who have a leftist
position (as individuals) can somehow come together. In a thousand ways
the power of capital is against that.

Consider the simplest sort of left gesture -- distributing a leaflet.
Fifty years ago there were two very good places to distribute leaflets:
at factory gates and the downtown of cities small and large. Now
everyone goes to malls (no trespassing) and the places of employment are
all surrounded either by gates and fences or by large parking lots which
are private property. So what replaces the leaflet of yore? That needs
thought -- not empty criticism of "The Left."

And we have just had a very bitter taste of the core strength of capital
in the u.s.: The power of the DP to absorb, blunt, dissipate left
activity, a power which the likes of Moore and the Nation and all
sidelines "critics" of "The Left" contribute to.

Carrol


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