Leftists, masturbation, and organizing for change

[HiPointDem]

On a Euclid Avenue-bound C train, I sat across from someone getting to know himself through his Sunday best. It was jarring, but not nearly jarring enough. In a strange way, years on the radical left had prepared me for such an encounter. You see, subway masturbators don’t care that everyone else is trying to get away from them; they don’t care about being a nuisance. They care about jacking off. Not unlike a certain variety of American socialist: enthusiasts of sectarian minutia, reenactors of old battles, collectors of decontextualized quotes. Leftists have a lot to say. What they don’t always have is the social literacy to speak to a broader audience, a literacy that comes with a grounding in practical politics...

But it’s impossible to deny that institutionally the socialist left is in disarray, fragmented into a million different groupings, many of them with essentially the same politics. It’s an environment that breeds the narcissism of small differences. In a powerless movement, the stakes aren’t high enough to make people work together and the structures aren’t in place to facilitate substantive debate.

The prospect for left regroupment was one of my main motivations for founding Jacobin. Yet the watchwords of this project have seldom appeared in our pages. It’s finally time to make a call for joint action on the Left with an eye towards the unification of the many socialist organizations with similar political orientations into one larger body...If it comes to fruition we’d see the convergence of American socialists committed to non-sectarian organizing under the auspices of an overarching democratic structure. This in itself may not seem like a significant undertaking — we’re only talking about a few groups and a few thousand people — but we shouldn’t let those humble beginnings obscure the potential that a fresh start for the organized left holds. For one, a larger, more centralized organization would offer a powerful pole of attraction for both the newly politicized and those who have spent years on the Left’s margins. By allowing open factions, such an outlet could incorporate activists from different strands of the socialist tradition and foster a pluralistic culture in which comradely debate and open disagreement, far from crippling action, helps build a political program....

We can also take comfort in the memory that small groups of organized militants have made a difference before, paving the way for mass action and sweeping structural change. In the short-term, a new organization would focus on anti-austerity and work hand-in-hand with liberal allies who want to see the welfare state rebuilt. But socialists will not merely be anonymous members of a future liberal-left coalition; they’ll seek to push those struggles beyond liberalism’s limits. This means identifying capitalism as a social system that benefits a minority, and openly organizing in civil society to challenge it. It means building its own institutions and organs of class power and presenting real alternatives. Before long, the subway masturbators among us will be drowned out by a generation free of decades of ill-will — organized and confident enough to make a difference. Until then, try not to stare.

http://jacobinmag.com/2013/04/fellow-travelers/

[Steepler0t]

1. A immense task

Maoist, Leninist and Stalinist dislike Anarchist for being bourgeoisie individualists. Everyone hates Trotskyist. And social dems/liberals are considered useless capitalist reformers.

Good luck...the Left is utterly fractured.

[JNelson6563]

2. Yes, "utterly fractured" is right.

But I don't think it's necessarily due to perception by the masses as much as it is the narcissism the article mentions.

Everyone's got their cause. Yeah, you've got yours but it's not the same as mine. Oh you don't think my cause is THE most important one? Well you're obviously a DLCer. Sellout!1!

"Fractured" indeed!

Julie

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. It's always been that way... as long as I can remember.

Ideology as religion. Marxism as the opiate of the non-opium smokers.