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

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> Your stuff on democratic participation is still too
> vague. Insofar as I grasp your point, you are
> describing what happens in an upsurge of
> radicalization. It is not something radicals or
> activists can create. That would be just another form
> of top-down organization. When it happens, you'll know
> it, and no one can stop it except by force. But saying
> to people, Don't Do This Because It Doesn't Involve
> Democratic Participation is a recipe for inaction.
> Like telling people, Don't Work For Unions, They Are
> Bureaucratic Organizations.
>
> Your response to my skepticism about a third party is
> uniformative. 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.

Yoshie may or may not be correct in urging third-party efforts now, but
your comparison won't hold. There are definite actions one can take,
_now_, regardless of relative forces, that imply a third party.
Campaigning for Nader/Camejo is just one of those actions. But I cannot
for the life of me imagine what I could go out and do that would be an
instance of "working for Total Revolution Now."

I agree with you _generally_ that democratic participation is something
that actually happens only with an "upsurge of radicalization." I would
also not tell people _not_ to engage in a given activity or organization
because it lacked democratic participation. BUT even the spontaneous
drive towards democratization which accompanies (and has its sources in)
an "an upsurge of radicalization" is not all that _purely_ spontaneous,
and without a trusted core of those with some experience of just how
difficult and complex democracy is that upsurge will be self-defeating.
And that experience and that trust can only be gained in ongoing efforts
to create what you (rightly) say can't be created! Also, one can never
predict those radical upsurges -- in fact, often they can't even be
recognized until they are well underway. None of the founders of SNCC
knew they were in the midst of such an upsurge, nor did most of us who
began anti-war activity in '65 or '66.

Those inexperienced in movement activity (and innocent of serious
historical knowledge) tend to think that one achieves democracy merely
by saying, "Let's be democratic." It doesn't work that way.

Gramsci argued that while an army can't recruit a general staff, a
general staff can recruit an army. I don't think that was quite correct,
but holding the military metaphor, one could argue that at least a large
and widely-spread supply of non-coms is necessary in advance.

> I still don't
> know why I should not botherto do the latter, but i
> should try to do the former. I could also say the same
> thing about working for social democracy or a New New
> Deal -- if we don't try to get it, we will not
> succeed.

But working for "social democracy" (or elements of it) is precisely what
Yoshie is talking about, and our argument is that that can't be done
without breaking with the DP. If and when "revolution now" is a tenable
slogan, it will be in the context of a huge mass movement for social
democracy.

But of course all this turns, for the present, on an empirical judgment
of the Bush administration.

> 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.

This is mere statement. Belief in the "appalling evil" of the Bush
administration is pure sophistry; the differences _in practice_ between
Bush and Kerry will be no greater than the differences between Humphrey
and Nixon or Carter and Ford. Marginal. Everything hinges on the
continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. That is the only issue now.
There will be no gains in social issues, in social services, or in human
rights within the u.s. -- there will not even be a slowing down in the
attrition of such -- until the U.S. pulls out of Iraq.

And despite the claim of many that there is no contradiction between
campaigning for Kerry and building the mass movement, in practice the
one obviously does preclude the other. It has always been so and will
continue to be so until a militant left independent of the DP emerges.
If not now, when?

> [clip] 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.

This has been my position for the most part -- but the steady move of
both parties to the right over the last 30 years suggests that that
difference failed to _make_ a difference. DP presidents make better NLRB
& Supreme Court appointments, but the decisions of both the SC & the
NLRB get worse and worse anyhow. The DP supports abortion, and abortion
rights continue to get whittled away anyhow.


> 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. In
> the meantime, I'm not the only person who thinks this
> is the worst administration we have had since James
> Buchanan's. Maybe worse.

We will face even worse administrations in 2008 or 2112 if we can't
break from the DP. Imagine an administration with the same policies but
with a more sophisticated person in the White House. I'm beginning to
think that leftists are over-reacting to Bush just as conservatives
over-reacted to Clinton.

Carrol