Louis Proyect wrote: > > Paul Street's analysis might be nothing new, but there are lots of > interesting statistics to support the notion that the masses are > to the left of the Democratic Party leaders.
No doubt. But that doesn't establish that there is anything wrong with the Democrats. After all, the fundamental responsibility of that party is to control, blunt, absorb such sentiments. So if we look at this from the viewpoint of the Demcratic Leadership, the Subject line shoudlread: What's Right with the Democrats This continual "criticism" of the DP by leftists is profoundly wrong. Criticism, properly considered, is self-criticism: One criticizes one's friends and allies in terms of shared principles. We share no principles with the DP Leadership. WE stand for fundamentazlly antagonistic principles. We do not, therefore, _criticize_ the DP (at least in conversation among ourselves) but strategize on ways to defeat them. In fact, I think criticism of the DP is in most contexts self-defeating. Our short-run goal I woudl presume, is to bring DP supporters (at least some of those who are, as you suggest, to the left of the DP, to join us, that is, to see that the DP, institutionally, is the enemy of the values they support. But if we merely "criticize" the DP we are in fact aligning ourselves with all those who believe the proper pllitical process is to "move the DP to the Left." And of course, that will never happen. Moreover, criticism of the DP, particularly if really strong, will be felt by our audience (leftists who cling to the DP) as an attack on them. In other words, criticsm of the DP is either redundant, a mere mouthing of what has been obvious for a century, or it is off-putting. A couple of the people who have been in our local anti-war group for quite a while, are berginning, on their own, to wonder a bout the DP. How do we get them to go beyond this doubt to seeing the DP as the Enemy. (It does no good to persuade people of the obvius: that current practice of the DP is not good enough: that only leads to the wrong question, "How can we make the DP serve us better?" Now note. We here have a context in which the most stupid slogan ever coined, "We have to start where people are" is not stupid but the basdis of wisdom, because _these_ people are already where we are -- they just don't know they are. So forget the DP; focus on building actions and internal discussions around our shared goals, clarifying those goals, clarifying the opposition to those goals, exploring how we can overcome that opposition. There is no theory to cover this process, no concrete principles which can guide practice, because these local situations and the people involved differ so widely. One simply proceeds according to immediate situation. Carrol P.S. My personal feeling is that excessive concern with "prvoving capitalism is bad" or "proving the DP are bums" exhibits political despair. We can't change the world by by god we can win wonderful rhetorical victories in our own heads. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
