Well, I have used this term "Left" and leftism, but I don't really like it. For me, left and right essentially refer to a distinction within bourgeois and petty-bourgeois politics, the so-called "dries" on the one hand who deny the existence of the social question, and the so-called "wets" on the other hand, who recognise that a social question exists, and that something must be done about it. But this distinction does not refer to any coherent political tradition, but to political policy, and specific political traditions in American culture may contain both "wet" and "dry" elements in a specific admixture. The term originates from the aftermath of the French revolution of 1789, acknowledged to have been a bourgeois revolution of some sort, not a proletarian one. In addition, "left" may connote "abandoned" and "right" may connote "correct", and some rightwing people are more left than the people who say they are left, whereas some leftists are to the right of the right in particular positions. So the use of the terms Left and Right more often that not implies a lack of political clarity, rather than clarifying things, it refers to the morality of a policy stance. Much better terms are "progressive" and "reactionary" because then at least we can debate what progress is and is not, rather than engaging in moral fervour.
I have never believed in TINA in my life, because I have been raised and educated in the spirit that there is always an alternative and that there is always a solution, and that if I do not recognise that, this must be because I am being stupid or lazy or recalcitrant or inconstructive. No genuine Marxist can believe in TINA because as I explained on Marxmail and OPE-L before, this conflicts with the Marxian principle that "humanity only sets itself such tasks as it can solve", a principle formulated in various ways by Marx in his youth, when he discusses how society recognises problems, but poses them falsely, requiring critical thought to sort it out. I do not deny the existence of pessimism, cynicism, nihilism and so forth, but I insist on discovering the objective material and social roots of these moods. Just as a very simple individualist example, if I eat badly and irregularly, my mood declines and my thoughts are more inclined to be negative, no matter what I do. I am not aware of medical research into the subtleties of this, but this is a material fact. But nor do I see much point in denying the left-right distinction such as it is practically used. Following Marx, the task is always to build a bridge from the old categorisation to a new categorisation. All the answers and solutions are already there, it is just a question of reframing, and the will to reframe, and it is much better to think thematically rather than doctrinally, since our individual theoretical capacity is limited anyhow. I would say that there are large numbers of Americans who are interested in the sorts of things I have concerned myself with in my life, so from my point of view there is a "Left", it is just not organised, and people do not understand organisation, what it means, and the overall goals are not clear. A lot of American left-wing political discussion concerns simply a process of validation of experience, that is the real problem. It isn't a constructive, goal-oriented process, in general terms, although there are many exceptions. The real problems of socialist politics are often different from what they think they are, but their own theory prevents them from seeing it. But that doesn't mean there are no solutions or answers. They are there, you just have to see them, critically reframe things so that they are solvable. A New Zealand comrade of mine went to California, at the time of the first Iraq war, and made a video of the street protests. He commented upon the fact, that there were a lot of people protesting in the street, but few organised marches or mass rallys. There was just all these people hanging about on their own, I wondered what the precise meaning of this was. We were interested in that phenomenon at the time, because we were discussing organisation, and what Americans mean by this. I think this is the symptom you talk about. But it is a symptom, not the disease itself. Jurriaan
