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Louis writes: "What does it mean to have an "outlook" toward the working class? To believe that it is potentially w revolutionary agent? I doubt that this has any value except to show that you are ideologically kosher." What it means is this: On Tuesday night I went to a meeting of the East Bay DSA "socialist" night school. Like all the others, the meeting was totally scripted. It started with a typically boring speaker and then with little breakout groups where we had to discuss some questions that, typically, simply nibbled around the edges of the issue. When I tried to raise the issue of needing a working class party, it was cut off by the chair. All of this is bad enough, but the part that's worse is that this approach is warmly embraced by the members. Yes, I remember all the meetings of my former union - Carpenters Union - where superficially something similar was at work. But there at least there was something real at stake - in most cases those who attended the meetings (a tiny, tiny percentage) were those who were on the make - trying to get a job as a full time union official, or already had such a job. On the job, things were totally different. Not so with the great majority of DSA members I've come across. Take the issue of the Oakland A's stadium: I wrote quite a bit about it last year. How it was planned to be built right across the street from an icon in the black community - Laney College; how it would have destroyed Laney; how a movement at Laney was starting to develop in opposition. A young comrade of mine and I went to a social meet-up of DSA right in this neighborhood. We tried to get some interest in the issue. There was none. Why? Because it didn't affect them and those in their social circle - young, white college grads. They simply had no interest in the working class youth who attend Laney. To me, it is not being "ideologically kosher" to believe that if you want to build a socialist movement in Oakland, one with any real meaning, then you have to orient to the kind of youth that attend Laney College. Or if it is "ideologically kosher", then I plead guilty. Proudly. John Reimann PS. As far as the local Green Party, they are no better. And as far as the Peace and Freedom Party, they are completely overtaken by the sectarian left, the type who all support Assad, while denying that they do. -- *“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black Jacobins" by C. L. R. James Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
