Gee, Stan, the "Black liberation" call at the end of your message sounds more
like Trot/anarchist line than anything else to me, who usually agrees with you.
Do you think the Black Caucus--or the majority of Black folks--want to give up on
the fight against racism? Not me.
bon moun wrote:
> 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
--
John Woodford
Executive Editor, Michigan Today
412 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor MI 48109
(734) 647-1838/FAX 764-7084
_______________________________________________
Crashlist website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
