On Thu, 5 Jun 1997, William S. Lear wrote: > On Wed, June 4, 1997 at 22:10:29 (-0700) Tavis Barr writes: > >On Wed, 4 Jun 1997, Michael Perelman wrote: > >> The answer is that I would not even think of coming up with such a > >> program. I would devote my energies to reinvigorating the grass roots. > >> In the U.S., much the most progressive legislation in our history came > >> during the Nixon years. Did Nixon have an effective reformist program? > >> Of course not. People were in the streets. > > > >But Michael, that's a cheap way out of the question. I don't think any > >of us -- well maybe Max -- would rather be in Jospin's place than where > >we already are building grassroots movements. The question was, "Well, > >what do you expect?" > > To quote Tavis, "Wellfurchrissakes, Tavis", that *was* the question, viz: > > Okay, can I be corny? If Michael Perelman were suddenly > plopped at the head of the French PS and forced at gunpoint > to come up with an effective reformist program, what would > he call for? [PEN-L:10526] > > So Michael answers, reasonably, that he'd reinvigorate the grass > roots. What more do you want? I'm getting sick of this.... Michael's answer was, "I would not even think of coming up with such a program." Well of course he wouldn't. I assume we take that for granted. That's why I said "forced at gunpoint." But if we're going to call the PS victory "depressing" because the "left" has no program it would be nice to know what kind of program would have made it less so. I'm not thereby disagreeing about the PS's lack of program -- Jospin's seems like "Maastricht lite" -- but it seems like there may be some gains resulting from the discontent that the election victory represented. A couple of questions for A.S. Fatemi, since he's the only one who's piped up from france: First, how realistic, and how serious, is the PC's call for a 35-hour workweek as part of the basis for their coalition? Second, you wrote, "there is no grassroot support for the left or a clear mandate to carry them through." Were you referring just to the the PS and PC themselves, or are there specific demands the left is making that have no mandate from below? Curious, Tavis
