Politico wrote: > The women's opposition to a possible > Summers' appointment was the > explanation some Democratic sources > are hearing for why the Obama > transition team has crossed Summers > off their list.
But is this factual? I thought Obama was entirely under the influence of big capital, unmoved by pressures coming from grassroots organizations. Somebody whose name is not visible here (http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.economics.progressive-economists/57724) wrote: > [this "grass roots" movement is > extremely likely to be run using what > the Leninists call "democratic > centralism," i.e. top-down rule, > tempered only by fears of driving too > many members away. If an individual > doesn't like what the network is doing, > he or she should leave. There will > likely be some flow of suggestions > from the roots to the top, but only > those that fit with the elite's goals > -- or involves mass discontent among > the membership -- will be heeded.] This sounds like profound political wisdom, but it's actually garbage. It's a truism that people have most influence on a political movement when they lead it or control it. So, should we wait until a political movement is born with us at the top (or worse, until a movement is born with no top, a perfectly horizontal movement, an association of equals)? Should we sit while we wait? If a political movement even as "Leninist" as this one is sensitive to the threat of people leaving it, isn't that a lever that organized people can use to steer it? Why not, for example, make that lever more effective by taking part in it, engage in the battle of ideas with others in the movement, so that the threat of discontented people leaving it becomes big enough to either steer it in a different direction or to dissolve it and create an alternative one with a better compass and more true democracy? Those are the questions that the fence sitters should try to answer. I'm *much* more sympathetic to the view of working with a Nader or a McKinney or a Bob Avakian or a Louis Proyect than with this uselessly detached view that blows off an movement that exists for pie in the sky. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
