[Marxism] sectarian? Re: The Obama Cult

[Louis Proyect]

Mark Lause wrote:
> The masses need "socialism."  The fact that almost none of them
> actually know know what it is is no reason for us not to use it.
> After all, if the masses don't actually know what we're talking about,
> it isn't our fault, is it?  It doesn't mean we're not doing our jobs.
> 
> ....Socialism, socialism, socialism.

I for one have not spoken about the need for socialism. In fact the main 
thing that interests me about Obama is his refusal to throw a crumb or 
two off the table to the liberal wing of the DP, without whose energy he 
never would have been elected. As Louis Godena used to say, I don't have 
a dog in this show (or was it a pony?) but I certainly enjoy giving 
ammunition to the young hotheads on Marxmail who will rub their liberal 
classmates' noses in the latest shocker coming out of the Obama/Clinton 
White House.

For those who want to keep up with the latest attempts at self-deception 
on these questions, I heartily recommend Portside, the mailing list that 
was launched by the Eurocommunist Committees of Correspondence but that 
now is more broadly based among the piecemeal reform left.

Here's an excerpt from a posting on the Obama transition that really 
struck me as this kind of logic taken to extremes:

 >>To be sure it is deeply unpleasant for rank-and-file progressives 
when, after an election, conventional politicians and cynical 
conservatives seem to push progressives to the sidelines in a way that 
belittles the scope of their efforts and diminishes the degree of 
triumph of their views. But the truth is that this is an inherent and 
unavoidable part of the process of progressive change and not a 
reflection of any specific failure or defeat.

There is a compelling piece of dialog that occurs in the HBO series Band 
of Brothers which deals with the 101st airborne division in WW II. When 
the division is ordered into Bastogne, the commanding general says to 
their leader: "you realize that once you go in there, you're going to be 
completely surrounded."

The officer replies simply: "we're paratroopers, sir, we're always 
surrounded".

This is a marvelous illustration of the fact that what can often appear 
on the surface to be a dismaying problem or setback can actually be an 
entirely normal, natural and inevitable part of the situation itself.<<

Since my father got a Bronze Star transporting food and water to the men 
in the 101st Division at Bastogne, this anecdote resonates quite a bit 
with me.

How pathetic that a group that has its origins (as remote as they are) 
in the October 1917 Bolshevik revolution to be circulating an article 
that likens the radical movement in the U.S. to foot soldiers. Until the 
left in the U.S. begins to see itself as a complete alternative to the 
bourgeois politicians that have been abusing the American people for 
hundreds of years, it might as well fold up its tents and simply 
integrate itself into the Democratic Party clubs all across the nation 
that serve as the foot soldiers of the ruling class politicians. In 
fact, I dropped out of C of C in the 1980s after attending one meeting, 
only to discover that most of the business on the agenda involved 
reports from these very Democratic Party clubs that always symbolized 
the dead end of reformism in the U.S.