"There has never been too much of such “pushing on from outside”; on the contrary, there has so far been all too little of it in our movement, for we have been stewing too assiduously in our own juice; we have bowed far too slavishly to the elementary “economic struggle of the workers against the employers and the government”.
I feel the current malaise is the calm before the storm. I have said to many around me that the violent nature of American political life is about to brew out of any control. However, it seems the Left (not including Progressives or Democrats) has become a legalistic position that studies and poses, but is not designed for true political recruitment or action. Further, this inaction has been customary for a long time, not just recently. Part of it is due to the marginalization th Left suffered at the hands of the media and the government, partly because it never had a program that unified all the disparate parts into an organ. Given the wildly different origins of the parties and grouplets that compose the Left, it is no wonder they could not, and would not, get along. The splintering has much to do with the centrifugal force of individualism in this country, and the mighty oppression that all "members" of the social institutions practice to save their bureaucratic hides. How to overcome this is a gargantuan job, and one that may need to hit rock bottom before it springs back.
The first part of your essay was strong and true as was the last part. But we didn't need 2000 words or whatever listing grievances against the State. What we needed was a clear and detailed step by step discussion of how to get from the problem - captive cattle mooing excuses to do nothing - to the solution. How has this been handled in other revolutions? What are the organizational structures required focus the energy of the many? This isn't a new problem. Solzhenitsyn stewed about in his gulag - why didn't people confront the officers of the regime with hammers and clubs and knives so other officers would fear their own fates? So we need more how to and less why. FFS, the why has been known for a century.
More is coming, but the short of it is that the party needs to be organized like an army. A militant, disciplined, self-sacrificing organization that exists to prepare people for a prolonged period of struggle.
I feel the current malaise is the calm before the storm. I have said to many around me that the violent nature of American political life is about to brew out of any control. However, it seems the Left (not including Progressives or Democrats) has become a legalistic position that studies and poses, but is not designed for true political recruitment or action. Further, this inaction has been customary for a long time, not just recently. Part of it is due to the marginalization th Left suffered at the hands of the media and the government, partly because it never had a program that unified all the disparate parts into an organ. Given the wildly different origins of the parties and grouplets that compose the Left, it is no wonder they could not, and would not, get along. The splintering has much to do with the centrifugal force of individualism in this country, and the mighty oppression that all "members" of the social institutions practice to save their bureaucratic hides. How to overcome this is a gargantuan job, and one that may need to hit rock bottom before it springs back.
The first part of your essay was strong and true as was the last part. But we didn't need 2000 words or whatever listing grievances against the State. What we needed was a clear and detailed step by step discussion of how to get from the problem - captive cattle mooing excuses to do nothing - to the solution. How has this been handled in other revolutions? What are the organizational structures required focus the energy of the many? This isn't a new problem. Solzhenitsyn stewed about in his gulag - why didn't people confront the officers of the regime with hammers and clubs and knives so other officers would fear their own fates? So we need more how to and less why. FFS, the why has been known for a century.
More is coming, but the short of it is that the party needs to be organized like an army. A militant, disciplined, self-sacrificing organization that exists to prepare people for a prolonged period of struggle.