The left may learn from past mistakes

rich richard.romeo at gmail.com
Sun May 23 17:39:50 CDT 2010


"I took a seat in the grandstand of philosophical detachment to fall
asleep observing the cannibals do their death dance."

the way I see it that's where we all stand currently.  that's the only
recourse folks--forget those pipe dreams already

yr ob't svt

eugene

On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 5:34 PM, alice wellintown
<alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
> The great paradox of the American Labor Movement is that it is and has
> primarily been, a working-class movement outside the broad stream of
> Socialist thought. In operating principles, rarely a class struggle,
> other than in its early rhetoric, the American Labor Movement has been
> and continues to be, rooted in traditional conservative economic
> unionism. American Labor is Business Unionism; it accepts private
> property and the market as fundamental, and largely beneficial pillars
> of economic life. Capitalism must be tempered by more humane
> institutions. More humane institutions are weakened by their humanity.
> Labor has always done its part in Dis-membering Unions, boring from
> within, fracturing from without, forging un-equal and exploitative
> alliances ...selling out brothers and sisters.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 2:42 PM, Robin Landseadel
> <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
>> Somehow this reminded me of Vineland and Against the Day.
>>
>>        On the whole, Kagan writes without evident bias, analyzing
>>        quite evenhandedly the rifts—which at times she suggests were
>>        doomed to be insurmountable—between the revolutionary and
>>        reformist camps in the Socialist Party as well as in the
>>        International Ladies Garment Workers' Union. If anything,
>>        Kagan seems to have more sympathy for the centrist
>>        "constructivist" leadership than do many historians who write
>>        about labor and radicalism. Her overall point, made without
>>        stridency, is that sectarianism, caused mainly by misguided
>>        revolutionary hopes, should ultimately bear the burden for the
>>        party's demise. Socialists, she seemed to say with some
>>        sadness and frustration, have often been their own worst
>>        enemies. In places, her tone even implies that she may
>>        consider this an ongoing characteristic of the American left.
>>        "Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of
>>        sectarianism," she wrote; "it is easier, after all, to fight one's
>>        fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful foe." In
>>        any case, there is no question that Kagan wrote not a
>>        propagandistic celebration of socialism's heyday but a judicious
>>        account of its self-destruction—with the hope that the left might
>>        learn from past mistakes.
>>
>> http://www.slate.com/id/2254406/pagenum/all/#p2
>



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