Re: Democratic Participation (Re: Nick Cohen on Thomas Frank)

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

At 11:54 AM -0700 9/17/04, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> Your stuff on democratic participation is still too vague.

Well, it is not possible to discuss the question of democratic
participation in precise detail in short postings to a mailing list,
but perhaps some concrete examples will help.

For instance, the Million Worker March.  As far as the top union
officials are concerned, they liked neither the timing (October 17,
2004, about two weeks before the election day) nor the message (of
independent political action of the working class advocating for a
comprehensive progressive political program, rather than criticizing
only the George W. Bush administration) nor the mode of organizing
(bottom up, led by Black labor activists on the left) of the Million
Worker March.

<blockquote>Despite the organizer's pro-labor agenda, the AFL-CIO has
refused to endorse the march, arguing that the group needs to focus
on electing John Kerry in the November presidential election. In
June, according to march organizers, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney
ordered a memo sent to State Federations and Central Labor Councils
asking them not to sponsor or provide resources to the march. "The
AFL-CIO is not a co-sponsor of this effort and we will not be
devoting resources or energies toward mobilizing demonstrations this
fall," the memo said. "We think it is absolutely critical that we
commit the efforts of our labor movement to removing George W. Bush
from office."

Other labor leaders also expressed skepticism. "We're not against
[the march], but we think that the time could be spent more
appropriately," Gerald McEntee, president of the 1.5 million member
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
told the Chicago Tribune.

At a recent AFL-CIO executive council meeting in Chicago, march
organizers protested outside, chanting, "AFL-CIO, we're ready, let's
go!" in hopes of convincing the trade federation to endorse the
event, the Tribune reports. They were unsuccessful.  (Madeleine
Baran/The NewStandard, "AFL-CIO Snubs Million Worker March," <a
href="http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=19&ItemID=6072";>August
19, 2004</a>)</blockquote>

At 11:54 AM -0700 9/17/04, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> Insofar as I grasp your point, you are describing what happens in an
> upsurge of radicalization.

Various sectors of the working class (e.g., organizers of the Million
Worker March) constantly strive for democracy, not just during an
upsurge of radicalization, and it doesn't make sense not to press for
democratic participation just because we do not live in a state of
universal radicalization.  We should do what we can.

At 11:54 AM -0700 9/17/04, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> Basically you say, if you don't try, you won't succeed. Well, you
> might as well say the same about working for Total Revolution Now. I
> still don't know why I should not botherto do the latter, but i
> should try to do the former.

Building a party of the working class and allies pressing for
urgently necessary reforms (such as universal single-payer health
care, which the majority of Americans want) is an idea that has been
seized by enough people in the United States to make it meaningful
for activists, organizers, and intellectuals to work on it, but
socialism hasn't.

At 11:54 AM -0700 9/17/04, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> Finally, your minimization of the Bush administration's appalling
> evil is pure sophistry, and I am sorry to say that if you believe
> it, you are deluded.

The communities that have come under the sharpest attacks by the Bush
administration are Arabs and Muslims, but they are also the
communities in which voices for independent political action --
Nader/Camejo 2004, the Green Party, etc. -- resonate the most.

At 11:54 AM -0700 9/17/04, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> but I never denied that there was a significant difference between
> the parties as you seem to here -- I just thought that the
> difference wasn't great enough in light of our goals. Well, now I
> think it is. Maybe not forever, hopefull the GOP will get back to
> its more normally rational advocacy of greed and oppression as
> opposed to the lunatic barbarism of the Bushies, then we can say
> again, A Plague On Both Their Houses. That would be progress, to get
> back there.

There are significant differences between the two parties of the
ruling class -- it's just that they are not the sort of differences
that many people seem to believe in or at least hope for.

In any case, whether Bush or Kerry gets elected in November, there is
no going back to the status quo ante.
--
Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
* Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/>
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
* Calendars of Events in Columbus:
<http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>,
<http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
* Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
* Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>