The trouble is, for a militant left to exist, you need a degree of class consciousness. And class has been so effectively made a dirty word in the U.S. I find it close to impossible to see this. U.S. history is a Gramscian wet dream, with the use of racism to fragment even the possibility of the development of a working class with any degree of unity, cohension, and willingness to fight back at its exploiters.
I don’t think you’d be able to successfully distinguish the mainstream left from the militant fringe. The opponents could group them together and make it stick pretty easily, simply because that bogeyman is what folks want to believe about the left that exists now.
I highly recommend this book. It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States
Racism did play a large role in why trade unionism and a socialist party never coalesced in this country compared to Britain and other countries. 'It’s okay if we [white males] organize and strike for better rights, but not for them [everyone else]." There was also a schism between labor leaders and socialists in this country, driven mostly by internal squabbles among the leaders of both groups.
The lowest white working class in this country always had someone else lower to focus their anger on, instead of looking up to see the real cause of that anger. And neither the Democrats or Republicans wanted to deal with a third party, so local victories - such as in Milwaukee, never gathered enough strength to challenge them at the national level.
The right will never admit it, but the longer they can keep stoking the racial fires, the class consciousness will be elusive, but those fires are dying among the younger generations, especially those born after the Civil Rights Act. Obama is only the first sign of that growing consciousness, but will not be the last.
Viva la revolution!
Yes! But they (the right) turned this one on its head too! Look how they throw around the charge of “elitism!” Obama’s an elitist! John Kerry was an elitist! Oh, and remember when John McCain slagged all the Republicans who didn’t care for Sarah Palin as “cocktail party conservatives?” It’s like they appropriated class consciousness and turned it inside out for their own ends! I have to hand it to them, that’s a pretty amazing accomplishment.
Hit submit too soon…
It would be really refreshing, I think, for somebody with a platform to talk about class without feeling they have to apologize for it. I couldn’t be the only one who feels that way. I expect there would be a lot of people going “Oh! We can talk about this again now? Finally!”
The Democratic Party is economically neoliberal, but socially just as permissive as any other liberal party in the developed world. Plus if you claim the choice in US is between “the right and the uber right party” in Europe outright racist parties such as the National Front gain large amounts of votes. Also a lot of parties in the Third world are basically mobocrat “Damn the USA! Damn Israel! Let’s expropriate the capitalists!” left loonies.
The militant left caused a massive backlash and one incident that amuses me is when union workers drove some college brats from the city hall in New York.
(Originally used in response by another poster in reaction to fantasies about a President Taft and Goldwater) You shouldn’t touch yourselves in public you know. 
Fascist! 
No, not really.
In last years election in the UK, the National Front got just barely under 1% of the votes. They were even worse in the previous election, getting 7/10ths of 1% in 2005.
Curtis was talking about France’s National Front.
16% in the 2002 presidential election. 11% in 2007.
Ugh. What would society do if all the head shops and clipboard-wielding Greenpeace jackoffs closed up shop?:rolleyes:
There’s no “militant left” because all those fuck heads sporting Che T-shirts, goatees and white-boy dreads realized long ago that once you reach your mid 20s, it’s a lot easier to get laid making six figures working for your dad’s law firm.
OP’s question reminds me of a consultant’s advice I once read. (Don’t remember where. Tom Peters’ book or something like that?)
A company had a product of higher price and higher quality than its competition, but had poor sales since customers didn’t grasp the higher quality. Should we lower the quality so we can lower the price?, they asked the consultant.
No! was the answer. Design and market a deluxe product of even higher quality and even higher price. This will help customers understand quality and realize that your normal product isn’t actually that expensive.
The connection to OP may seem vague, but is clear to me. Rather than “degrading their product” (moving farther and farther to the right, because GOP is only comparison available), a true left-wing would be a great foil for a centrist Democrat Party and great for America, and would help people understand that Democrat proposals are sensible and centrist.
There have been some weak attempts, e.g. Air America. What’s gone wrong? Not militant enough?
Sign me up! I’m on my way to the university library to liberate the fuck books in the name of the revolution!
Too militant. The True Believers of the left are very much the minority. The rest of them (us, I should probably say) are more of the cultural relativist school, preferring to hear a wide variety of viewpoints rather than a party line. Air America appealed to the tiny number of dogmatics; everyone else sticks with NPR.
Was it the AG who had served as counsel to the HUAC in the 1950s? And who attended Joe McCarthy’s funeral in 1957? That AG?
All I can muster is a hearty :rolleyes: for anyone who seems gleeful about the idea of rock-throwing car-burning mobs.
The state university will never contain any “fuck books.”
Exactly. In fact, the far left and the far right could really help each other out if they worked together on this. If a party got popular promoting European-style socialism, it would factionalize the Democrats. Likewise, if an ultra-right movement really got going (this might be happening now) it would split the Republicans.
But if they both did it at the same time, maybe even coordinated with one another, maybe then they’d have a chance of finally busting the two-party system good.
What we need is not a third party. What we need is a fourth party.
Thank you for your contribution to this thread.
I… don’t know what this means? What are “fuck books?”
The reference was to Fat Freddy of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.
How about a rock-burning car-throwing mob? That could potentially be awesome.