The legacy of "The Left"

[auntpurl]

31. Yeah, wow, this is amazing.

Much better said than I could manage! I particularly liked these bits about what the left needs to change to stop self-marginalising:

* A habit of looking for political purity which might exist in theory, but has never found a place in broad coalitions - the only reliable vehicle of social change - where people of varied views and interests gather, contest their views, but in the end struggle against a common foe.

* A penchant to elaborate tactics - that is demands, forms of struggle, attitudes toward compromise and alliances, and so on - apart from a concrete estimate of the balance of class and social forces at any given moment.

and especially

* An underestimation of the importance of the fight for equality in general and racial equality in particular. The search for common ground and a common program of action is not in contradiction with the fight for equality. In fact, the common ground will be wider, deeper and more durable to the degree the broader movement vigorously fights for equality in all of its forms.