Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 14:42:48 +1000
From: rws-AT-comserver.canberra.edu.au (Rob Schaap)
Subject: M-I: Re: Community & Class


One can, I think, agree with Dave Bedggood's observation that the processes
of accumulation as described by Marx are more in painful evidence today
than ever, and his assertion of the need for the left to regroup, without
arguing whether one should be revolutionary (and even then, what kind of
revolutionary) or a reformer.

I last flirted with organised left-wing activity twenty years ago, and all
I remember is being heartily greeted and promptly spat out by people who
knew everything about revolutionary party politics and nothing about the
world in which they lived.

That's why I'm grateful for the contributions of Robert Scheetz and Jason
Schulman.  

For me, Robert is saying 'let's present a united coherent presence in the
public eye by addressing people's lives, lived issue by lived issue'.  

For me, Jason is saying 'given the socioeconomic/political cultural
environment in core societies today, it is necessary for the left to stop
preparing for imminent spontaneous popular revolution by debating the best
historical model for post-revolutionary administration, and start
addressing issues that are ruining people's lives as we write.  

Interests that revolutionaries like Adam and petit bourgeois reformist
offal like me share are there in abundance:  
* Keeping people out of the clutches of fascists (which we're failing to do
in Australia just now); 
* protecting a public presence in communications; 
* rejuvenating public health and education; 
* keeping the socialist tradition within public discourse to militate
against 
'the-wall's-come-down-and-therefore-everything-the-socialists-ever-said-is-o
bvio-usly-wrong' rhetoric; 
* helping remove the Right from government wherever they're in it
(everywhere); * presenting articulate options at elections; 
* wresting control of the trades union from the corporate collaborators (if
this sounds like Trot labelling for lefties who happen to disagree, it
should not be taken as that - I'm specifically talking about people who
stack branches to stay in long enough to sign away rights to strike and
even CPI indexed wages - to my mind, they've been in control here for at
least twelve years); 
* to present a feminist line that makes sense to women who've hitherto not
seen their struggle as part of our struggle (and to convince some of the
established left that theirs is part of ours);
* to excise racism from our cultures;

Well, we could all go on for a fair while, couldn't we?  There's a new
party forming in Australia with, I'm given to understand, this sort of
platform.  If it does fail, I hope it is not because the 'reformists' and
various brands of revolutionaries are so busy fighting each other they
forget their responsibility to the workers.

All the best, Rob.




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