Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 10:57:08 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Fire in the America, ch. 3 "The Neglected Revolutionary Allies"


"What are the weak links in the chain of bourgeois rule? Where can 
breakthroughs be made? One weakness is that the bourgeoisie, and the 
capitalist system it controls, are driven to produce an ever increasing 
materialistic and atomized society. Truly humane values -- love, 
solidarity, etc. -- are devalued by capitalism. At present the New Right 
is trying to overcome this contradiction by emphasizing traditional 
values like the family and patriotism, but the left can respond more 
effectively by showing how social and moral disintegration are rooted 
in late capitalism.

The central contradiction of contemporary capitalism however is that 
it is increasingly undemocratic. Economic and political power are 
concentrated and centralized; the average citizen plays no role in 
running the giant corporations. In the political sphere, it is only 
centralized organizations, like business associations and trade lobbies, 
that play major roles in the selection of our political leaders. And of 
course it is the control of the media by these organizations and the 
bourgeoisie that determines what political options and messages are 
presented to voters. Moreover, Watergate and Contragate show the 
darker sides of 'imperial' presidencies and a general contempt for 
constitutional procedures.

It is the 'death of democracy' that the left can use as a political banner 
in the United States to challenge the hold of the bourgeoisie. In this 
struggle, the left can reclaim the US past, including historic milestones 
like the Declaration of Independence. It can appeal to the country's 
progressive political tradition which includes anti-war movements as 
well as political leaders like Tom Paine, Abraham Lincoln, Eugene 
Debs, Robert La Follette, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Another major challenge for the left in the United States is to reclaim 
patriotism from the right. In the twentieth century, the US ruling 
classes have made patriotism virtually synonymous with anti-
communism, anti-Sovietism, and now anti-terrorism. To support any 
of these causes is to be fundamentally 'anti-American'.

The left needs to reassert the revolutionary values of 1776 and 1860. 
Sectors of the third force [the social movements] today are far more 
supportive than the bourgeoisie of the national and democratic values 
that the nation was founded on. It is corporate capital and the national 
security state that are destroying basic values and denying foreign 
countries right to self-determination, the very right on which the USA 
was founded when it rebelled against England in 1776."


Louis Proyect



ps. Jon, any "=20's"?



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