Carrol writes:
When we find ourselves suddenly involved in a mass movement
which has caught us by surprise, What will we wish we had been saying in
the preceding years?
We keep plugging away in whatever local struggles available, in part
because we never know but what one of those local struggles won't be the
spark that sets a prairie fire, but mostly (1) to have a center to
relate to such movements when they arrive and (2) to keep up a
conversation and say the things we will wish we had said.
==================================
Cantakerous as Carrol can be, I've always respected his commitment and
tenacity.
But to build a broad left - or even a far left organization, for that
matter - it has to be accepted that people bring to political and other
causes varying levels of committment and personal and familiy
responsibilities. If those who come around are hectored or guilted, they'll
inevitably become discouraged or burnt out, and it will be the movement's
loss. I saw this happen frequently in the far left organizations to which I
belonged.
I was also active in the trade unions, the NDP (Canada's social democratic
party), and the solidarity movements, and wrote for the left and mainstream
media about these issues. It was not only personally easier to be so engaged
when I was younger and single, it was also politically more satisfying:
there were more opportunities for involvement in mass organizations, and you
could point to the USSR, China, and national liberation struggles led by
leftists to show that socialism was more than the ideal it has become. Now
my participation is limited to the occasional mass demonstration and the
casual exchange of views with other leftists in internet salons such as this
one. It's partly a function of age, but mostly because I find small meetings
and demos of Marxist greybeards and anarchist students dispiriting rather
than inspiring.
If necessity propels my apolitical neighbours, friends, and relatives to
take to the streets, I can't for the life of me imagine that I wouldn't join
them. I fully expect I'd feel re-energized. I'm confident most others on the
list would react the same way. Frankly, I don't think it will matter very
much that such an eruption will have caught us by surprise - in fact, I keep
a quite open mind about that possibility - or that we have not been
preparing the groundwork in advance. People learn quickly in the course of a
political struggle, and unlike students, they often come quite well
"prepared" with acquired skills, experience, and understanding of their own.
In the absence of such struggles, I view participation in local group
activity more as a matter of personal choice rather than political
responsibility. I appreciate that Carrol feels otherwise, and more power to
him in his efforts, but I can't share his urgent concern.
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