Date: 16 Feb 96 23:52:19 EST
From: Jon Flanders <72763.2240-AT-compuserve.com>
Subject: Which Party?


 >>  on what basis can you say that "we are at the beginning ....?
 IMHO, your assertion above is an example of *exactly* the kind of
over-optimistic and over-simplistic rationalization that you accuse the
 SWP of making.>>

 <We need realism in periods of both radicalization and reaction.>

 <BTW, I don't think that Marx and Engels would have cut off one of their
 arms to be on this li*st. It makes an interesting fantasy, though: <<G.
Levy>>


 I know it is hazardous to make any predictions about where we are politically
when, for example, strikes are at an all time low. I guess for me it is partly
a gut feeling based on years of on the job discussions. I think there is a
greater openness to let someone like me get a hearing.

 It doesn't mean US railworkers are going to rush to the barricades tomorrow
like our French counterparts. Tensions are ratcheting up though. Look at the
auto strikes over overtime a year ago. We had spontaneous sickouts of rr
engineers over 60hr plus workweeks that nobody ever heard about. I think this
rash of rail crashes, three in the last few days, is symptomatic of the
pressure the bosses having been putting on workers, equipment and
infrastructure in every industry. That could have been me, being pulled out
from under tons of steel in the lunchroom in St. Paul, Mn. In my yard, we had
a conductor with 25+ years of experience cut in three pieces switching cars at
night. These things are adding up.

 Look at the response to Perot, Buchanan and Farrakhan. The mainstream
capitalist press has not been able to shove them in a corner as loonies. I
know they are the opposite of a working class alternative, the point is they
are off the conventional radar but people are responding anyway. I know they
are, it comes up every day in discussion.

 Yes, we need realism, but I don't think I am alone in feeling a few breezes
blowing.

 I wanted to respond to Hugh R.'s point about the rewards of party work. I
know what he is talking about, it can be true. I would say to him that to get
others, like myself, back in the game and to attract the new generation, some
work has to be done to unify, fuse, unsplit, whatever all these seemingly
fragmentary groups into a revolutionary party capable of attracting workers.

 Its fine to talk a good game, but the workers I have met aren't in love with
going to meetings to talk. When they do want something done they will be
attracted to an organization that looks like it can deliver. We are a ways
from that point, I would say.

 And on the l*st, one more time. It is not a question of what this is right
now, my point again, is that the ability we have now to communicate across the
world and our own countries is very important. Think of Marx waiting for the
latest batch of newspapers to come in from the US as he sat down(or was it
Engels) to write his great series on the Civil War for Horace Greeley's paper.
We should have some sense of historical appreciation of what is now possible.

 Best, Jon Flanders


  E-mail from: Jonathan E. Flanders, 16-Feb-1996




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