Last night I'd gone to a meeting of the Socialist Project here in New York - about 15 people (one other SP member, several folks from Solidarity, and a few others) - for an evening devoted to the crisis in Haiti. I had feared a kind of evening of apologia for Aristide, but the two speakers who were most involved in the Haiti situation were very critical of Aristide, one more so than the other. The third speaker, a Jamaican, raised two questions I thought very provoking. One was whether the assumption that US capital had "designs on Haiti" might be altogether wrong - what, exactly, did Haiti offer to entice the US? Not oil. And not much else except a very cheap labor force. Thus, by implication (and I think he may have been right) the problems in Haiti might not really have had their origin in the US. He also posed the most haunting question (to me) of the evening - what happens in a small country such as Jamaica when even a left wing government faces bankruptcy, when it can either take a loan from the IMF, with all the conditions of that loan, or simply let the social services (health, housing, fire and police, etc.) close down because the payroll can't be met.
All three were aware that while the US Left can be critical of the choices made by Aristide, or Lula, or Allende, the reality offered them has not been a reality with a genuine range of choices.
As I left the meeting I thought "that is the kind of discussion that makes sense to me - one that reminds me of why a US Left is essential - we get caught up in questions of why Cuba doesn't do this, or why Iraq did that, or why Lula isn't doing something else - when we are sitting right here in the belly of the beast, in the heart of the empire, and the most urgent change that needs to occur is HERE".
Primarily because the three speakers (and they didn't agree with each other) were dealing with "real facts", not abstractions, I was reminded of Gandhi's insistence that our politics, our theories, had to be based on a study of the facts. That the facts "on the ground", "where we live", had to determine our theories, and that the Left, in its approach to "what is to be done", must take into account the limits of this real world of which we are a part.
How important for us to be on the Left, and in the Left, even though there is not much in the immediate future we can do. We are indeed waiting for Godot - waiting for some break in the capitalist system. But meanwhile we are here, we need to work out our strategy for this time and place. That is the good news, even if it may seem depressing - if we were in Haiti, aside from being in danger of our very lives, there would be little we could do. But we are here, extraordinarily free to think, organize, and hope that if "cracks appear in the structure" in the future, we can help point the way to better alternatives.
Then when I got home, it being Friday night, I rolled a joint, lit it, and started watching what was left of an evening of British comedy carried on a local PBS station. Then I started to read the email, and realized there were troubles in River City, unrest in the Outer Districts. Three alternates to the NC from North Carolina had resigned their posts. Then Bill Pelz called from Chicago and asked if I'd read the email. I said I had but I found it too discouraging to face and would call Vernon Kelly (North Carolina) in the morning and read the posts when my head was clear. Which I've now done. (This is the second time Bill has called me on a Friday when I've been happily high - I worry about my image in Illinois).
Tonight I talked to Vernon, and to Bill. Vernon is just recovering from pneumonia (one of those illnesses which sounds like a small country that turns up in a Broadway musical, "New Moonia"). He put it clearly - he said folks were resigning because things weren't fun anymore, they had gotten caught up in the referendum, in the inner fights, they were feeling bitter, demoralized and weren't doing local work.
It is that local work which is important. North Carolina was and will again be good at this. Greg Pason sank his teeth into the human rights issues in New Jersey and helped pull out a victory. Chicago has set up a regular forum series, bought a building, and these are the things which count.
What encouraged me for the moment is that folks in North Carolina who have resigned their posts as alternates to the NC aren't resigning from the SP. I've got just a few brief points to make. I'm sending this to Socialists Unmoderated, to a range of local contacts I have, and the SPNC.
First, for me the wonderful upside is that this is absolute proof that I have zilch control over any invisible caucus. Neither does Chicago. We found out about it from the internet. Proof absolute that this strange invisible tightly controlled "Issues Caucus" that some folks talk about, is a loose network of . . . . . . individual comrades who deeply care about finding and organizing around local issues and building a constituency for socialism. I stress this because Bill Pelz had just gotten some pro-referendum material from the Boston and Vermont Locals which made the usual charges (and, as always, didn't list individuals in support of the charges) and had suggested I was the "eminence gris" (how does one spell that? Rob?), of the forces opposed to the referendum. Gris, indeed, but eminence hardly.
Second, I'm not going to urge anyone on the verge of resigning not to resign - but I would hope they would wait until after the referendum count on Monday. If the referendum carries, I think there is a strong case that all of us who signed the "con" statement that was widely sent out should resign our posts at least, as we would certainly have been repudiated. But let's wait for that moment on Monday. On other days I'd be much more optomistic about the future of the SP, but the havoc the referendum has caused, the bitterness, and the irresponsibility of some members -- sure, who wouldn't think about resigning? But life isn't better in DSA or CCDS or Solidarity. It may not be worse, but it won't be better.
Third, the key really is the phrase Vernon used tonight as I talked with him. He said "It just isn't fun anymore". And we should have some funout of our work!! And it won't be fun if it isn't real, rooted in community work, in "local reality". Yes, the Grassroots Tendency seems involved in abstractions I don't grasp, and the Debs Tendency seems to have a raft of people oriented to "Identity Politics", such that it is now risky to make a joke for fear someone is going to take offense at is racial or gender overtones.
But we need to keep moving. It doesn't matter, in a way, whether people are in or out of the SP - what is important is whether they are in or out of the American Left. We have to learn to shrug off those in Boston who feel any local work with Democrats (or Republicans or Greens or Communists) is treason. We alone know our own backyards. Let Boston attend to its own work, each of us, and each local grouping of socialists, must attend to our own. We are about the task of defining what an American Left is, and what it should do. The answer to that won't be found in the writings of Debs, or of Thomas, or for that matter of Marx (or Gandhi). The answers will be found slowly, as we discuss, talk, work together. Most people in the working class or in the Hispanic, African American, Asian, etc. communities are not into identify politics - that is a very academic kind of politics and by all means let those who believe in it practice it. (I just warn them they are not allowed to crack any jokes about it, nor to be caught smiling).
The rest of us will be dead soon enough, whether we are 74, 47, or 14. So . . . folks out there need to stay in contact with the people in the SP they trust and can work with. And to stay in touch with folks in other groups - Greens, Democrats, Communist Party, CCDS, Solidarity, DSA, whatever. And just pretty much ignore the folks who insist on minding everyone's business except their own, or trying to impose some correct racial, gender, class, or humor line on all our members.
The wake up call to us is that this fight has badly demoralized very good comrades. The fact is not that salvation is to be found in the Socialist Party - who knows where it is to be found except as we work together on real issues? But this country needs an open, democratic, humane Left. That doesn't need any national caucus or tendency - it just needs each of us to renew our local work.
I didn't ask Vernon tonight about the Socialist. I think they may give up on it - and who knows, if that happens, who gets the next crack at it. But our job is to keep in touch with those we trust, and keep on with our work.
Fraternally,
David McReynolds