On Sun, 25 Sep 2011 20:43:00 -0400 Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 9/25/11 8:31 PM, Michael Smith wrote: > > > > The Democratic Party. > the real > problem is not the DP but the radical implosion of the 1970s and 80s > when the Maoists and the SWP went off the deep end. The real need is to > break out of that framework altogether and get organized on a class > struggle basis but without the insanity. We had a chance to build > something significant out of the 2000 Nader campaign but the god-damned > Demogreens sabotaged it. I guess that the DP still is the turd in the > punch bowl after all... I think it is. Granted the space-cadettery of both Maoists and SWP -- I saw the Maoist dream world at first hand, but know little about the SWP version -- that's a long time ago, though to people of Louis' and my vintage it seems like only yesterday. But the DP is still alive and well and poisoning well-intended minds daily, hourly, and on a mass scale. If Louis asks me nicely, I will tell a story that captures the characteristic flavor of Maoist nuttiness back in the day. ...Oh hell, I'll tell it anyway. Late 70s. I was part of a little Maoist cell here in New York, led by a guy -- let's call him Dave Manchester -- who was really the classic commie ironbutt: he could outlast anybody at a meeting, and never, as far as I know, had to get up and go pee. The moment I'm thinking of is shortly after the Three Mile Island nuke-plant scare. The streets were full of people riled up about nuclear power. Dave didn't quite know which way to jump on this one. On the one hand, the "masses are mobilized." On the other hand -- wait for it -- "after we take state power, we'll have to *run* these reactors." True story. I should add that Dave grew up to be a union bureaucrat and is now a thorn in the side of a relative of mine who runs a union. I gather he is no longer a Maoist but still an ironbutt; and nobody has ever seen him in the WC. -- -- Michael J. Smith [email protected] http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://www.cars-suck.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
