Herbert Aptheker> http://garnet.berkeley.edu:3333/.left/CoC/.conference/.plenaft/aptheker.html We meet not to mourn but to organize by Herbert Aptheker We have experienced devastating blows to the Left. The incessant attacks from the imperialist world were damaging but not decisive. The anti-humanist qualities of that world made resistance... We meet not to mourn but to organize by Herbert Aptheker We have experienced devastating blows to the Left. The incessant attacks from the imperialist world were damaging but not decisive. The anti-humanist qualities of that world made resistance inevitable. That resistance was embodied in the socialist vision. Alas, it helped produce not a fulfillment of that vision but finally the nightmare embodied in the term "Stalinism." The nightmare was a distorted response to the horrors of imperialism _ its wars, with mountains of dead, its colonialism, with oceans of insults and tears, its intensified racism with its fearful suffering. The anti-human system remains, but it is senile. Here at the capstone of that system, in 1990, the 20 percent of the population of the world's richest countries had 80 times greater wealth than the 20 percent of the poorest. If one compares the richest and poorest 20 percent of the world's people, the income differential is 150 times greater. This inequality is at the root of the turmoil characterizing the globe. That turmoil, resulting from exploitation, will end only when the exploitation is terminated. Reactionary policies, from Reaganism to fascism, do not resolve the contradiction; rather, they intensify it. Liberal policies, while preferable in human terms, at best palliate the crisis; at best they postpone grappling with the roots of the crisis. Only radical policies confront the root of the crisis; indeed, radical means getting to the sources. Awareness of the human suffering induces a radical therapy. From Joe Hill to Debs to Gurley Flynn, to Robeson to Du Bois, this has been the clarion call _ don't mourn, organize. For this reason we meet. And we meet with experiences behind us. These experiences have included matchless heroism and accurate diagnoses and important _ if partial _ advances They have included also, alas, dogmatism, sectarianism, rigidity, even fanaticism. The goal, let us never forget, is a humane social order; it cannot be reached by rigidity, not to speak of cruelty. I believe that all with a common goal of a society characterized by the absence of poverty, racism, divisiveness and the presence of sufficiency, dignity and beauty must comprehend that such a goal requires radical therapy. Attempts to maintain exploitative and inhuman social orders in the name of conservatism eventually end in fascism. Attempts to alleviate the worst excesses of such a social order may reduce them but will never remove them. Eventually, they, too, because they do not succeed, may yield to a policy of blood and iron. Only a commitment to transform such a social order can really succeed in that goal. Such a commitment requires unity among those committed to the goal. Such unity, in turn, requires a repudiation of dogmatism, a welcoming of allies, a democratic practice. Only a democratic practice can eventuate into a democratic society. That society will mean an absence of exploitation and domination; equality not domination; equality of all, both sexes, all nationalities, all religions and no religion. Such a society will consider violence _ let alone war _ as anachronistic. Such a society will witness the flowering of the arts, of science, of humanistic behavior. Such a society will be civilized living together of liberated women and men. Such a society is worth a lifetime of commitment. Such a society should be our goal. Our behavior in striving for such a society must coincide with the quality of life we collectively seek to create. To participate in the effort to reach such a goal is the ultimate purpose of life. Let us vigorously, joyously, incessantly, defiantly, help create a truly human social order. Address of Herbert Aptheker, historian, author and organizer. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
