From: Julio Huato 1 -clip-
As far as the points where the left should direct its efforts. One can always pull ideas from one's pants, but the logic of the situation (if you allow me this figure of speech) dictates focusing on blasting Obama's policies, his retreat from the hopes he arose (regardless of whether he promised this or that change or people just imagined that) -- which, by the way, does not require that he be demonized personally. More importantly, the practical conclusion from attacking Obama's policies is that a primary challenge against Obama should be now in preparation. The idea here is simple to conceive, but (obviously) hard to execute. It consists of isolating Obama, leaving him with the support of Wall Street and the political-establishment, but depriving him from any significant mass support -- mainly young people, organized labor, and African American working people. ^^^^^ CB: The Left might follow the lead of the left of the Congressional Black Caucus in supporting Obama critically ( not an attack; trotskyism , smile). The CBC interestingly placed its critical activity practically at the center of the current class struggle which is the working class versus finance capital, and the latter's big ripoff of trillions. ^^^^^ We can't avoid the issue of personal leadership. Any political challenge against Obama would have to be personified to be serious. Frankly, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader, and other well-known figures of the left are not up to this task. If we exclude miracles, the personification of the primary challenge to Obama -- if it's going to emerge -- is most likely to come from inside the Democratic Party! A bunch of people here are going to say, "What? Another Democrat again? Don't we learn anything? Democrats are part of the problem." Etc. So, basically, we go to square one in the old debate we've had here for years. As far as I'm concerned, the Obama fiasco doesn't alter my view of how the U.S. left can and should relate to the Democrats as a political formation: http://www.swans.com/library/art11/jhuato01.html. To paraphrase Marx: The U.S. left makes its own history, but it doesn't make it as it pleases. It doesn't make it under ideal circumstances, but under the circumstances that actually exist, as they emerge from the past. The Democratic Party -- or, more precisely, the political and ideological disunity and fragmentation of the U.S. working people which is the real basis on which the Democrats stand -- weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the U.S. left." I'm not saying we should just perpetuate things as they were and are. What I'm saying is that the process to change things cannot start by denying where we currently stand, believing that one can just will its way out of it. IMO, the U.S. left cannot choose to avoid the *in*fighting with the Democrats, without making itself irrelevant. There are things the U.S. left can choose, but this is not one of them. I don't see an alternative, except in the form of a massive waste of political energy. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
