[Marxism] Re: Greens, Dems and Building Working Class Independence

["M. Junaid Alam" <mjunaidalam@xxxxxxxxxx>]

"Again, this is verbatim the same argument that the DSA, CPUSA and
others make to remain in the Democratic Party."

This postulate comprises one of the two main defenses of the Carlos/McDonald 
position. It represents
a complete abandonment of dialectical thinking, and a slip into purely 
formalistic thinking. Its poverty
is best expressed metaphorically: "just as the boy cried wolf when there were 
only sheep around, you too
cry wolf - just because there are now wolves around."

The key is the *political context*. The Democratic Party is part of the 
two-party dynamic. The two-party
dynamic is the *main* political barrier in this country. I can't tell you how 
many e-mails I have
gotten from people in response to my article who said they had been banging 
their heads against this
wall in NPOs, in liberal groups, that are tied to the DP, in their personal 
lives as Democrats for years,
as people who voted for Democrat, etc.

To paint suppport for the leftist wing of the Green party as merely replicating 
the act of supporting
Democrats is to ludicrously conflate the institutional role of the Democrats in 
maintaining bourgeois
hegemony with the aims and aspirations of socialist/anti-capitalist/radical 
elements of the Green Party,
which is to *break* the two-party dynamic and their stifling hegemonic role.

The second postulate of the Carlos/McDonald position is to counterpose some 
non-existent
"working-class" group to really-existing attempts of hundreds of thousands of 
Greens
to galvanize those looking for an alternative to the two-party system. This is 
nothing
but pure workerism. No such working-class group exists, and there is no rule 
written
anywhere stating that if a group is composed of middle-class people, it cannot 
serve as a
battering ram against the gates of ruling-class political and ideological 
hegemony.

The whole god-damn reason we don't have this mythical working-class political 
group in the
first place is precisely because consciousness and awareness and militancy in 
the working-class
of this country is so low to begin with. I am not interested in organizing 
workers as members
of the National Alliance or as Christian evangelists or as hunters or as people 
offended by
someone's breasts on television. I will take a middle-class latte drinker or 
hybrid car driver
who wants to get the hell out of Iraq, fight for economic justice, and stop 
world pollution
over any of those other folks any other day of the week. And in fighting 
boldly, confidently,
and openly for their goals, they will attract, inspire, and connect with 
ordinary people
who share these goals and realize their interests.

To repeat: There is no pure heroic party of proletarians organized as the Labor 
Party or the
Socialist Party or MWM or anything else. All of these manifestations only show 
just how limited
and how weak working class militancy is. To conjure up stereotypical industrial 
heroes,
hammers slung over shoulders, especially given the erosion of manufacturing and 
explosion
of service sector in the American economy, is to live in fantasy land.

This grasping at straws was evident when Carlos talks about the Socialist Party 
as a great choice.
That group may as well not even exist; I have not seen or even heard of anyone 
who has seen
anyone associated with the SP in any anti-war, pro-Palestine, pro-labor action 
in 3 years
in Boston, nor have I ever seen or heard of any of its members at any of the 
usual leftist
outlets or conferences or online publications. More ridiculous is to say they 
are the only
group to do civil disobedience, since a number of anarchist actions like that 
went down on M20,
not to mention the anti-recruitment actions for which CAN students have been
beaten up by cops or arrested in a few places around the country. Not that 
doing CD in itself
really proves anything anyway in terms of political viability.

We are proceeding from one major political reality in America: most of the 
people
active in the struggle for making the world a better place are located in the 
middle class,
not the working class. Well, so be it. No need to jiggle in guilt over this 
fact. This isn't
changed by handing out newspapers festooned with sickle and hammers, or 
adopting more radical
rhetoric, or swallowing right-wing stereotypes about middle-class leftists as 
all being cowardly
consumerist liberals.

We should proceed from reality, not concoct fantasies of what we would like 
reality to be.
No more, no less. Attempts to smash the two-party dynamic from the left cannot 
be painted as
"merely replicating" Democratic acquiescence to Republicans when these attempts 
are expressly
against the two party apparatus in their concrete electoral, campaign, and 
ideological
orientation, and when the two party apparatus is the main barrier to 
revolutionary consciousness.
That is a stupid sectarian error.

The GDI Green Party doesn't have V.I. Lenin tattoos stamped on their chests. 
And they don't have to.
Their demand for gutting corporate power is more than sufficient to piss off 
the elite and make
all Nation liberals spew venom against them with all their might, while at the 
same time
galvanizing several hundred thousand people in this country. Must be doing 
something right.


_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism