RE: [Marxism] Stan Goff on Cindy Sheehan/antiwar unity/Hayden's "exitstrategy"

[Joaquín Bustelo <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[I posted -- or tried, at any rate, I don't see it in the comments
section, at least not yet -- this comment to Stan Goff's Feral Scholar
blog in reaction to his article. -- Joaquín.]

Stan --

Awesome: you nailed this one, but good.

My only suggestion is that there was a word missing in this sentence:
"The only way to prepare for that is to build a powerful and militant
multi-tendency REVOLUTIONARY left that transcends the NGO politics of
the 'progressives' on the right and the sectarian (and tactically
stupid) maximalism of the ultra-left."

I would have said, "build a powerful, militant and *united*
multi-tendency REVOLUTIONARY left."

Fidel said it: "Division in the face of the enemy was never an
intelligent nor revolutionary strategy."

Why united? Because the sane revolutionary left groups are very small:
this one has a strong presence in a couple of labor projects, that one
in the Black Liberation Movement, still a third one among student
radicals and so on...

This fragmentation prevents campaigns waged by these groups to have
maximum effect, an introduces an impossible to ignore element of
organizational rivalry if not downright sectarianism into every effort.
It leads some folks, especially less experienced ones, to posture with
excessively leftist rhetoric in hopes of attracting young rebels. 

The fear is that fusing with another group is going to dilute the
strengths of a given political organization. Perhaps. But why assume
that, on the basis of common work and experience, the comrades of former
group "A" won't convince those of former group "B," or vice-versa. And
why assume the former group "A" comrades don't have something absolutely
crucial that they can learn from former group "B." Why view the
weaknesses each of us from our perspective sees in the groups of others
as a reason for staying apart rather than a motive to unite so that the
weakness can be more rapidly overcome? 

The explanation is that we're divided into so many groups because we
don't agree. I don't buy it. I think a lot of the time we don't agree
*because* we are divided. 

This fight around Sep. 24 has a valuable hidden lesson. Which is that a
whole series of groups and comrades with no group took essentially the
same or very similar positions, pushing for a united antiwar action,
pushing for Palestine to be included in the antiwar movement's agenda
but not be used as a pretext to split the movement at the service of
sectarian agendas, etc. 

To me, that is the cluetrain making a delivery: we belong in the same
group, there isn't enough political space for all of these groups and
the divisions, which mostly are rooted in conflicts that belonged to the
Cold War epoch and don't apply in any immediate way today, are absurd.


________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism