R. Anders Schneiderman:
>Lous, why did you feel the need to cite Lenin chapter & verse to argue that
>sectarianism is bad?
Because I am in the process of collecting my thoughts for a more formal
reply to Harvey. Harvey tries to stake out a classic Marxist position on
social movements, but I will argue that it is only classic sectarianism.
>But it _was_ organized around middle class concerns--at least, that's what
>I remember back in elementary school, when I participated. :) And that
>was a real problem. Nice middle class people like me had legitimate
>concerns, but it was pretty elitist to push a strategy where blue collar
>jobs would be on the line & middle class jobs weren't. Had someone pointed
>that out to me at the time and suggested a strategy that would save trees,
>dolphins, _and_ people, I would've been very happy (and I might have stayed
>active in the environmental movement).
>
Earth Day 1970 was the brainchild of a Wisconsin liberal senator Gaylord
Nelson, who while thumbing through a copy of Ramparts magazine focusing on
ecology, decided that action was needed. He proposed a day of action. This
is identical to what happened with the Vietnam Moratorium in the same year.
2 liberals proposed the action and Marxists got involved with it and pushed
it in a left direction. If it hadn't been for Marxists, the Moratorium
would have retained flabby, middle-class politics. Since Marxists have
avoided the ecology movement, the results have been flabby, middle-class
politics.
>But criticizing green reformism or deep ecologists is hardly an outside
>activity. Various wings of the environmentalist movement fight each other
>all the time. I know plenty of environmental activists who think green
>reformism ala the cuddling up with Clinton turned out to be a real disaster
>and many who think that the deep ecology folks are off the deep end. Just
>because Harvey calls himself a Marxist (assuming he does these days) &
>writes books that badly need editing is no reason to ban him from the
>intra-envrionmental fray.
>
The fight in the ecology movement is between grass-roots radicals and the
corporate oriented mainstream groups like the Sierra Club. What is missing
from the mix is socialism. There is not much of a socialist presence in the
movement. I am not for banning Harvey. I am for fighting sectarianism.
Louis Proyect
