Re: [Marxism] The campaign and the debate around Obama

[Marvin Gandall <marvgandall@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Fred writes:
>
> He should consult comrades like John Riddell, Suzanne Weiss, and Barry
> Weisleder, all of whom have quite a few experiences with the structural
> differences between the NDP and the Liberals (or the Democrats here) and
> have had occasional successes in work in the NDP.

I don't know Suzanne Weiss, but John, Barry and I go back a long way. When I
was active politically, we were in the Waffle together as part of the LSA
fraction in the NDP. I wrote the line document for the Mandelite minority in
the LSA on our experience in the Waffle. As I recall, Richard Fidler wrote
the line document for the League. Later, Barry and I collaborated in the
RMG, and subsequently in various smaller incarnations of the Waffle in the
NDP after I left the Trotskyist movement. These included at different times
the Left Caucus in which former LSA'ers associated with Ross Dowson played
an important role, the Agenda group which included the Canadian Lambertistes
Luc Aujambe and Ross Sherwood, and the Campaign for an Activist party which
ran Judy Rebick for party president.  I also wrote on the labour movement
and the NDP for Canadian Dimension and This Magazine, the leading
publications of the broader Canadian left, and participated in public forums
on NDP-related matters with CP'ers and social democrats. So unless things
have changed dramatically in the party in the intervening decades, and much
as I retain warm feelings and admiration for both John and Barry, I am not
sure there is much either could tell me about the Trotskyist orientation to
the NDP or the nature of the party or "the occasional successes of work in
the NDP". I'm glad, incidentally, you chose to qualify the successes in this
way.

If anything, I think an argument could be made that the left in the
Democratic party has been more vigorous than the NDP left for some time. I'm
thinking of groups like the former Rainbow Coalition and, more recently, the
Progressive Democrats of America (http://www.pdamerica.org/). I know
American Trotskyists are contemptuous of the PDA and other opposition
caucuses and blogs inside and around the DP, but they seem to me broader and
deeper and more dynamic than any anything the Canadian left has produced in
the NDP since the Waffle in the late 60s.

A quick glance at the PDA website suggests there is considerably more
organized activity at this level than is credited by yourself and others on
the list. The real issue, it seems to me, is not that you think there is no
such activity, despite your claims to the contrary, but that you think it is
worse than useless because it reinforces illusions about the Democrats. I've
also previously alluded to the trade unions and the representative
organizations of blacks, Hispanics, gays, women, etc. who regularly mobilize
hundreds of thousands to organize and canvass on behalf of Democratic
candidates. These mobilizations at least match and arguably exceed the kind
of activity undertaken by similar organizations on behalf of the NDP in
Canada. However, you applaud this as positive political action in the latter
instance while wholly denying it's existence in the case of the Democrats. I
think you also make a fetish of "membership cards" as indicating a lack mass
participation in the DP, and greatly exaggerate the level of mass activity
and the presence of unnamed "structures" in the NDP as indicating the
control that party members are ostensibly able to exert over the party's
leadership and program.

> Marvin's position would be more logical if he argued for the Canadian
> labor
> movement abandon the relatively isolated NDP for the big as all outdoors
> Liberals, who after all include a lot of people who sympathize with
> unions,
> social movements and think that, all other things being equal, world peace
> is preferable to world war.

I am afraid you are wrong about this. The unions support the NDP as do most
activists from the various sectors I identified in the Democratic party.
They don't support the Liberals. When Buzz Hargrove and the CAW began moving
to supporting the Liberals after the Ontario NDP government's imposition of
a "social contract" on Ontario unions, he was roundly condemned by the rest
of the labour movement. It's true that the CCF/NDP's failure to grow as a
third party for more than seven decades, and it's failure to sufficiently
distinguish itself from the Liberals serves as an incentive for "people who
sympathize with unions, social movements and think that, all other things
being equal, world peace is preferable to world war" to vote for the
Liberals against the Conservatives. But there is no historical relationship
between the labour and social movements and the Liberals as there is between
these institutions and their activists and the NDP.

> And to suggest that the base of the Democratic Party is "sympathetic to
> trade unions, social movements, and world peace" is a great prettification
> of both the base and their preferences. The Democratic base is much, much
> more inclusive than the NDP's, for example. The base of the Democratic
> Party
> includes, for example, investment bankers, cops and prison guards, machine
> politicians and lots of others. (It is also true that the NDP is pretty
> much
> nowhere among the Quebecois and, I suspect, the Native peoples, whereas
> the
> DP has a big Black and Latino base.) It includes not only peace-oriented
> sectors of the population but quite hawkish ones.  Lieberman was not a
> Democrat by mistake.

You will also find cops and prison guards. machine politicians, and
increasingly even investment bankers in all of the social democratic parties
as well. The suggestion is not that the the Democrats are what we used to
conceive of as a "workers' party". The suggestion is that neither are the
social democratic parties, if they once were. They are all pro-capitalist
parties which draw on a core base of trade unionists and supporters of a
wide range of social protest groups. It follows that if is valid to "enter"
the NDP and the British Labour Party, it is equally valid to enter the DP,
and if is perceived as futile or unprincipled to enter the Democrats, the
same should necessarily hold true for the social democrats.

> Marvin should avoid talking to radicals in the United States as though we
> are all absolutely ignorant not only of Canada but of everything about the
> US as well. This most recent contribution shows slippage in that
> direction,
> in my opinion.

Well, I will have to be more careful of leaving that impression. The time I
spend exploring this issue is in itself indicative of my respect for
Marxmailers like yourself, Joaquin, and others whose contributions I value,
despite disagreement. I'd hardly describe you as "ignorant". I'd describe
your analyses of the NDP and the Democrats as self-serving, but  no doubt
you'd level the same criticism at me.



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