On 12/11/06, Mark Lause <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Yoshie wrote, "The problem is that there is no organized Left to speak of in
the USA, so even when Americans actually agree with leftists on economics
and foreign policy, leftists aren't making any political headway and not in
a position to do so any time soon."
Yes, but this is partly a matter of the Leftist predisposition to getting
caught up in matters that really can't be resolved...or, if resolvable,
wouldn't mean anything in terms of a possible arena of work.
Case in point...as I repeatedly have raised...is the absolute crisis in the
system represented by the serial failure of the American system to
recognize: areas of environmental risk, global warming, the heightened risk
of hurricanes, the crisis posed by Katrina in the New Orleans area, the
flooding of much of the city, the creation of tremendous human loss, etc.
This was a problem for which the Democrats had no answer...for which the
middle class leadership of the black community had no answer....
And the Left, such as it is, was doing what?
There are things a Left could have done or could still do, in response
to the Katrina crisis or any other issue to which the Democratic Party
has no answer. American history, as well as examples from abroad, can
give us many ideas about things to do, short-term and medium-term.
But it's time for us to reckon with the fact that _there is no
organized Left in the USA_, not even a "such-as-it-is" Left, be it
socialist or social democratic. What we have, in the way of
organizations, are (A) religious institutions, (B) trade unions, and
(C) liberal non-profits dedicated to issue- or identity-based
lobbying. Individual leftists (some of whom belong to this or that
socialists sect* and most of whom have no such affiliation) can be
found in (A), (B), and (C) (though most individual leftists who are
scribblers appear to be in academia), and many individual leftists,
inside or outside them, are probably all doing good work, at least
once in a while, but they just don't cohere as an organized Left on
the national scale, to which we might invite others to join.
Is it possible to build an organized Left in the USA at this point in history?
* About those who belong to such sects, Stan summed it up the best:
"It is not what has been done well by members of these organizations
that concerns me; it is the fact that the people who have done well
would have done well with or without the organizations" (at
<http://stangoff.com/?p=423>).
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
