RE: [Marxism] re: Some comments on Stan Goff's post

[Joaquín Bustelo <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Josh writes, "But I really don't know of many far left groups that
actually do workplace or community organizing or make that their
focus..."

I think both Solidarity and Freedom Road Socialist Organization do this
sort of organizing, Solidarity much more in the traditional labor
movement, FRSO with less of a single-minded labor concentration but more
in communities and especially in the Black community. Black Workers for
Justice is a third group with this sort of approach. Bring the Ruckus, a
small group that originates from anarchist milieus, also has some people
that do some of this kind of work. LRNA does work that (at least) has
some parallels to it also, but I don't have as clear a picture of what
they're into. And there are a lot of independent Black organizers, and
some Latino ones, that are engaged in these sorts of efforts.

Solidarity nationally is trying to get more focused on issues,
communities and concerns of Blacks, Latinos, etc., and some of the
things I've raised here in this regard very closely parallel the
discussions we're having inside Soli, as well as informally between Soli
members and FRSO members, etc. I think the Revolutionary POC Workshop I
referred to in an earlier post certainly helped me and a number of
others get a further degree of clarity. And I think there is growing
sentiment and agreement in Soli on something like that we need a "dual"
orientation, both to organized and organizing labor *as such* and to the
nationally oppressed communities *as such.* And that in the latter
(oppressed peoples) we should seek to develop this work in the same way
the labor work has been done, consistently, systematically,
year-in-year-out, through ups and downs, in an extremely organic way.
I've also been saying that it really should be a *triple* orientation,
including youth, and stressing the need to privilege the participation
and leadership of women in all these areas. 

Parallel to this discussion/ferment within Soli, there is a project
called something like the youth rank and file organizing project, about
which what I can say is limited both because I'm not IN it, and because
it's the sort of effort that benefits from discretion. Participating in
this are young members of Soli, FRSO, and young people with no
affiliation. I believe some folks from BWFJ may be in it, either that or
they have been helpful and cooperative with it. (If anyone on this list
wants to be put in touch with the organizers of this project, email me
privately with your contact info jbustelo(AT)bellouth(dot)net, and I
will pass it on, although I think there's a couple of the organizers of
that project who lurk on this list and perhaps they will make themselves
known.)

This was something that came "from below," from some of the younger
activists in Soli and Freedom Road, and really as an alternative to the
SEIU or UNITE/HERE "career" option. 

The aim is to build up "clusters" of young socialists to do organizing
work generally along the lines of the "rank and file" strategy,
concentrated in specific localities and unions. 

So for example here in Atlanta there's now a couple of post-college age
folks working in places organized by one of the largest union locals in
the South, in the transportation sector, and it is a local in which a
pro-union-democracy slate won election and an older Soli member
(although not by much) was involved in that.

That workplace/union situation obviously is interesting, but there's
actually more. 

It's a great situation politically because in the city there's a
significant immigrant rights movement that both Freedom Road and
Solidarity have worked closely with, as well as a developing Transit
Riders Unions that Jobs with Justice has made its major project and both
groups participate very actively in it. And of course we relate to a
variety of other things, also, like Military Families and Palestine
Solidarity -- probably too many things, especially on the Soli side
where we could use more focus. We've not yet succeeded in cohering all
this very well but there's great potential. And there's a very close
relationship between the two local groups.

One key to this I think that's worked for us here is that we don't
*counterpose* union to community organizing to "traditional"
antiwar/student protest organizing. We're not stupid, we realize there's
a tension there, even a certain lack of coherence, but for now I think
we've come to the conclusion that we're better off trying to make things
non-conflicting and where possible mutually re-enforcing than to
proclaim the one-and-only True Path, based on limited experience. 

The key to a lot of this has been the collaboration between FRSO and
Soli, where we talk and listen to each other very frankly, "as if" we
were part of a common movement (which, at bottom, we are, the communist
movement) and organization (which we're still working on). 

A very close friend and comrade in Freedom Road baptized this
collaboration with the name "Refoundation from below" coupling their
preferred term for regroupment/recomposition of the left with Soli's
"from below" catch phrase. 

It grew out of our collaboration on the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride
and specifically in support of the leadership that had emerged in the
Latino immigrant community here, and I and a couple of the FRSO folks
wrote up a paper summing up that experience. Then based on that I wrote
another paper for the Soli discussion bulletin which I also posted to
this list a couple of years ago, called "Refoundation from Below." 

I'd be happy to send those papers to Josh or anyone else interested by
email, just contact me directly jbustelo(at)bellsouth(dot)net. We (the
Soli and FRSO people most directly involved) also need to do some
summing up of the transit fight back and Transit Riders Union work we've
been collaborating on. As in the case of the IWFR, the national question
and self-determination is proving to be at the center of this fight, as
well as the labor movement and how class exploitation and national
oppression intersect, so this is a process of collectively drawing
lessons that is very important. But I'm not sure how/when that will get
done.

Joaquín



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