Those Who Do Not Make History Suffer It!
Press Action
Monday, November 01, 2004
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/papathanasis11012004/
By Theo Papathanasis
“Each one labouring for all and all for each—that is the only talisman that can bring peace to the hearts of the nations that cry for peace with earnest entreaty but cannot win it, for the hurrying of the vultures that prey on the wealth of the world.” -Peter Kropotkin
Since it was declared, wails of discontentment and dismayed grumbles reverberated throughout the radical press over John Kerry’s nomination. Whether or not he wins or loses now immaterial. Should the left have expected more than an odd sop from the Third Way party of Clinton, whose bosom ideological ally is Tony Blair, famed first for defanging British Labour, then for famously getting on with George W. Bush to finagle the farce about Iraq’s fabulous, forty-five minute, biochemical force de frappe?
The real stunner for leftists shouldn’t be Bush’s rampage, nor the Democrats’ presidential offer of a official so awful he’s oft described as offal, i.e., called cadaverous, but the realization that they fight amongst one another far more than they do against their common enemies: monopolies, multinationals, international financial institutions and their paid politicians. We bicker about whether or not we should support Nader, if the legion of dismayed ABBers is the real enemy, if our focus is primarily about gender, race or class struggle and how should that struggle—whatever we haven’t yet determined it to be exactly—be fought on the political, cultural and street levels. We’re leftists. We’re critical. We criticize the establishment, we criticize ourselves. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. That is the bedrock of our tradition. It’s just that sometimes we are counterproductive. Like now.
The American left—like the left in most of Europe—is fractionalized. In America we’ve got Nader and his Populist Party, the oddly non-Trotskist SWP, the seemingly splitting Green Party, the WWP, the SP USA, left leaning Democrats of the Kucitizen persuasion, hosts of activist groups, anarcho-syndicalists, a few beleaguered unions, hippies, tribes, and much, much more. All this diversity is a potentially powerhouse, but collectively, progressive forces remain divided and weak. Battle after crucial battle has been lost to the corporatists. Not a single one of these progressive groups (in Nader’s case, an individual) serves as a rallying point for the rest. I imagine most of them would like to absorb some membership of the others. (What political force doesn’t want a larger base and support network?)
Seeing as how we are all pretty much on the same side, it might be a reasonable proposition to admit it is decidedly in our interest to actively cooperate, not compete with one another, and get down to the nitty-gritty and on with a jot of business at hand: reclaiming the state.
The political problem we face is a lack of representation. Notwithstanding the odd mayor, state representative and town official, few offices in the U.S. are held by independent, committed progressives. Ralph Nader has done America the great service this election season (and last) of making the issue of two-party, political duopoly so crystal clear that—for those who bother to peer though this conceptual lens—the claims made by both major parties to look out for the little guy shatter like glass. However, Ralph Nader is only one person, currently providing little more than a protest vote.
Greg Bates has conceded that some of the criticism Nader’s had to endure has been constructive. [1] He also thinks that a powerful, progressive third party, “working on a mix of local and national runs, not just a celebrity running for president ...” is a good idea. Something to give the Democrats something to worry about in 2008 while they continue aping Republicans with an agenda that’s a few degrees to the left at home and right at home with the Right abroad. Bates forwards the idea that Nader’s organization might provide some useful architectural skeleton for building such a political entity, citing the Nader faction’s experience in battling with Democrats for ballot access, a reasonably acceptable platform and a reservoir of human energy. All well and good. However, many of the other aforementioned political parties and groups could justifiably make similar claims. Others too have fine platforms and are fine people bursting with energy.
I would like to make a modest proposal.
Leftist parties and organizations should seriously consider scrapping their various political parties in exchange for forming a single, massive, loose-knit, progressive bloc. Not a coalition of parties—this could easily disintegrate and thus offers potentially trepid but receptive constituents less reason to offer support—but a wholly new party. It’s a tremendous sacrifice. Many of these parties have long traditions. Coming together in this way implies many individuals will lose the power they have over their small and manifestly electorally ineffectual political apparatuses in exchange for sharing in a mass, cooperative political venture whose aim and focus is to forcefully intervene with policymaking both locally and in Washington. Further, it is likely that few will be wholly satisfied with the emergent organization and platform, as almost every group will probably have to sacrifice something for the realization of the common project. Of course, factions will develop and the fighting could get fierce. This is normal and should be expected.
Ideology is something people love to contest hotly. Many politically engaged individuals exult in eristic battle lust: badass dialecticians vie with other pontificating heroes of the podium for the glory of proving themselves correct, for exposing the lack of consistency in their opponents’ line of argumentation, etc. These champions are crowned with nothing and any victory resultant from this courageous battling with one’s allies rapidly assumes the form of real political defeat when, tired out from hacking themselves to bits, no united power remains to venture forth and take on the real opposition. This is one of the main reasons no united progressive political force exists in the U.S. The disparate but ideologically aligned groups simply have not yet come together to make common cause and hash out a united, political plan of attack to unleash against the metronomic onslaughts of corporatist imperialism pushing us to the brink of ecocide.
The World Social Forum declared “Another World is Possible”. Whenever I think of this, I recollect the language of Victor Serge.
"Consciousness that the present hardly exists; and that it is necessary to give everything, at this hour, to the future so that there may be a present. Consciousness that all of us are nothing if we are not with our class, its humanity rising. Consciousness that work ahead does not have limits, that it requires a million arms and brains, that it is the only justification of our lives. Consciousness that a world collapses and that you can live only while giving yourself to the world which waits to be born.” [2]
It’s time for a conference, focused on forging our many and talented forces, resources and consciousness into a progressive, political dreadnought.
[1] Greg Bates, “Beware the Stamina This Time: What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?”, CounterPunch, October 9/10, 2004.
[2] Victor Serge, “Flame on the Snow.”
Theo Papathanasis is a neo-surrealist and used manifesto salesman. When he’s not trying to unite the left he tackles simpler projects like developing handheld teleportation machines. He is working on an epic study guide about American militarism called DEATH STAR.