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Louis wrote: > ...an open letter signed by some high-profile Obama > supporters inviting people to a convention in the Midwest to > launch a new progressive party would be a huge step forward. It would be. If a third party of any significance to the left of the Democrats were to emerge during this period it would necessarily be left-liberal, intitiated and composed mainly but not exclusively of activists drawn from the "netroots", trade unions, and social movements who threw themselves into the Obama campaign and are feeling his "betrayal" most keenly. They would not readily respond to a call issued from the outside by groups or individuals whom they perceive both as marginal and to have stood apart from and criticized their efforts to reform the party from the inside - even should they now concur with the criticism. > A united socialist ticket is a very, very, very, very bad idea. We need > something much more like the Greens before they got subverted by Medea > Benjamin and company. Here you are apt to be disappointed. While there will always be those wanting to sharply differentiate the new party from the DP in order to displace it, the majority at this stage would likely view it as still to weak to do so and would seek instead to pressure the Democrats from the outside into enacting the kind of domestic and foreign policy reforms they are now wanting the administration to deliver. Unlike the members on this list, their contempt for Geithner, Summers, Emanuel and the DLC does not extend to the liberal wing of the DP, with which it still identifies and would first look to for alliances, including with it's high-profile congressional, media, and social movement leaders. The Greens as well as the social democrats have always had a left and a right. The only way to avoid confronting the Medea Benjamins is to abstain from the organizations to which they belong. It's also worth reminding ourselves that while the far left has historically played an outsized role in social and political struggles and political education, the fate of mass organizations ultimately depends less on ideological confrontation, however necessary, than on the capacity of capitalism to recover from the crises which afflict it. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
