Jeffrey Fisher wrote: > > yes, but also . . . another important caveat to doyle's strategy is > that it can only possibly produce a left if we're putting demands he > can't meet *that a mass of people actually think are reasonable*. thus > the ice cream business.
Max's secret of success is the same as that of Johnson's Astronomer in _Rasselas_, who causes the sun to rise each morning. Obama is as indifferent to anything Max & his ilk might "demand" as the sun was to the astronomer, but if Max "demands" what Obama is going to do (that is something reasonably close to zilch), lo and behold Max's strategy will have worked: he will have moved the President of the United States to action. Wonderful. Also known as crackpot realism. But we shouldn't be interested in putting any demands, realistic or unrealistic, to Obama. We are putting demands to the people, since our demands can only make a difference when they mobilize hundreds of thousands month after month in the street. Social Democracy is as dead as Marxism-Leninism, and Max is as silly as ISO. And the first purpose of demands made to the people (as working class) is that considering the demands is educative, i.e. they learn something about their relation to the world by their discussion of the demands. "The anatomy of man is a key to the anatomy of the ape." This is the most important political advice in the collected writings of Marx. (B Ollman calls it doing history backeards.) Leftists need to act within a roughly 5-7 year time span, within which they must honor Rosa Luxemburg's proposition, "The final goal is everything, the movement is nothing." What is the position we want to be in 5 years from now? That is, what is the final goal within this framework? I suggest that it is that a left should exist five years from now, which is not the case now. By all indications, there are 10s, perhaps 100s of thousands of leftists in the u.s. - scattered individuals, many but not all loosely connected to various local active groups (anti-war, living wage, some union drives, etc.) (If you want a history analogy, think of the period before the FIRST (more or less illusory) Congress of the RSDLP. Everyone knows about the Second - but something had to have come vaguely into existence in Russia for there to be a SECOND! We don't have even that now. What can we, as scattered leftists, do in the light of that as our Final Goal. (Of course our Final Goal in this sense keeps shifting on us: the essential point is that we NEVER get stuck in the dead end suggested by Joanna in apost earlier today: the crackpot realism of starting where we are an taking tiny steps along a path that merely leads to th swamp of again taking tiny steps which merely lead to the swamp of again taking tiny steps . . . And there is no use debating with those who are chasing the pie-in-the-sky of influencing the Obama Administration. Get a group of people seriously discussing the demand that military personnel not be stationed outside the 50 states (i.e., not in Puerto Rico or Guan either!), and you have an explosive situation. Minds might open to the world. Who knows where it might lead. Get a few score small groups around the country discussing what a nation with a twenty-hour week would look like, and entering into internet communication with each other, �� Carrol Jeffrey Fisher wrote: > > yes, but also . . . another important caveat to doyle's strategy is > that it can only possibly produce a left if we're putting demands he > can't meet *that a mass of people actually think are reasonable*. thus > the ice cream business. > > On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 7:39 PM, Max B. Sawicky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > I can't promise this won't be second rate, but I'd rather > put to BHO a list of good stuff that I think he CAN do. > > There's always time to demand stuff that won't happen. > > Doyle Saylor wrote: > > Greetings Economists, > I would say that serious lists are more important > than some clap trap about ice cream. What is > possible to seriously demand now? That would help > set the agenda for the left to form around. I > don't care if a list is not feasible. What I care > about is making demands upon Obama that he can't > meet under the present circumstances and if he > can't accommodate then we have a left. > > I'm tired of second rate banter. > thanks, > Doyle Saylor > On Nov 6, 2008, at 1:22 PM, Max Sawicky wrote: > > That's better than Carrol's list. > _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
