At 11:57 AM 1/7/01 +0300, you wrote:
>
>
>>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01/06 10:07 PM >>>
>The
>franchise was the hardest-won of all social and civil rights, and from it
all other
>rights and freedoms flow. The Bush coup smacks of desperation and shows
just how
>deep is the crisis at the heart of US and world capitalism. But it is also a
>potentially fatal error, whether forced or no (that remains to be decided,
IMO). We
>should make the defence of democracy the centrepiece of all our struggles
from now
>on, for that is where the Bush ghouls and the bankers and financiers of the
>corporate monopoly capitalism have put it.
>
>Yes, let's have a kindly, more benevolent (more democratic) capitalism.
And as soon as it runs into crisis, out will come the jackboot again. You
just don't get it Mark, do you? All this language about the Bush "coup" and
how he "stole" the election is just taking the whole circus at face value.
In fact what we see just a little more clearly through elections like this
is just what a circus it has been for so long. Frankly the logic which says
in a context like this "look at how important and progressive the franchise
is today" is one that eludes me. Unless what you mean is "lets all vote for
the Bushes of this world to put an end to illusions." Now that at least
makes a bit of sense. A franchise will no doubt be important again in a
different sort of society, but it looks pretty irrelevant to me in this one.
>Tahir
For the black folk here who have suffered and died for the franchise, as a
key strategy in the overall fight for black liberation, it is anything but
irrelevant. This argument reminds me of the kinds of problems many of us
have repeatedly encountered from so-called trotskyists and anarchists, who
for all their vocalizations against religionists themselves go for the
easy, bipolar, moral "solutions" that are, after all, dissociated from real
conditions. It's pure idealism, all goal and no strategy, utopian at its
very core. The question remains, as we continually ask our friends in the
DE community, HOW does this transformation take place, and WHO effects it?
What are the stages of struggle that get us from HERE to THERE?
Effective revolutionary activity has never begun with the fight for the
socialist transformation of society. It has begun as a struggle against
specific conditions--misery and repression. Masses have never been
mobilized by a theory. They are mobilized concretely around specific
grievances. To get "there", we have to begin "here."
Do you think the Black Caucus just walked out of Congress to protest on
behalf of Al Gore?
Struggle centers around many issues, economic, social, political. But
ideological struggle is essential, and that doesn't begin with with dogma
and jargon from the left passed on to the masses from on high. The masses
are saturated with ruling class ideological assumptions, as we all are to
some degree. The purgative is a situation like the one that exists now,
when the mask of legitimacy is ripped off. People will recognize, step by
step, what is and is not legitimate, but through their experience in
struggle, not through our preaching.
Don't forget how hypocritical the Declaration of the Rights of Man was.
Nonetheless, it was the spark that eventually lit the flame for the Haitian
Revolution and the abolition of slavery there, as well as independence.
L'Overture's tenure as leader of that struggle was always motivated by the
desire to be merely equal members of the French community. It had to
advance under that banner for a time to progress to Dessaline's eventual
demand for independence. Changing strategies and alliances demanded no
less for effective struggle. Dessalines could never have forged the
initial alliances--which were necessary--and L'Overture would never have
had the will or inclination to massacre the French, which Dessalines
did--no less necessary given the conditions.
In the US, IMHO, racism as institution and ideology, is so entrenched and
intractible that it can never be solved. That's why I have given up on
trying to convert white people and "fighting against racism," per se. The
fight here, in my opinion, is not anti-racist--that's a tactical issue.
It's for Black liberation--which is similar in many respects to national
liberation, which is likely the only struggle in this country with
genuinely revolutionary potential. That struggle has yet to be widely
conscientized, as Freire would say. This agitation around voting rights
violations in the last election is--as Mark correctly points out--a prize
we would be idiots to refuse.
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Crashlist website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
>
"I am not a Marxist."
-Karl Marx
"Mask no difficulties."
-Amilcar Cabral
"Am I to be cursed forever with becoming
somebody else on the way to myself?
-Audre Lorde
_______________________________________________
Crashlist website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
