Better known among the theatrical Improv cognoscenti (of which I am not one but have met a few) The Yes-And Adjustment It is a method of facilitating Collective Creativity; the first rule is Do NOT inject no negativity into the process:) Instead the participant must first AXSEPT the contribution of her/his/its predecessor, affirm it, and only then essay to offer whatever extension or embellishment may seem apropo.

So I would like to take this opportunity to affirm your comments re the Dumbocrat Party. Your words do generally accord with my own experience, do closely reflect the Objective Reality I myself perceive, as corroborated by as much research as I’ve been able to carry out given my limitations, and also by those analysts I’ve come to respect the most over these tumultuous decades.

However when it comes to “the red tradition” when my thinking springs, I must confess to having evolved into something of an Agnostic Eclectic, so as they say in SF: Please Curb Your Dogma… Mil Grazie:)

“You said that to say what?” you ask? The point IMHO is to Sharpen The Focus. I think we need an indepth understanding of this PDA phenomenon, first of all. I don’t think we can understand it in isolation, so we need to also understand the political and socio-cultural context, plus where the money is coming from. Which means we have to develop a take on the UFPJ, also the Nader/Camejo/Zeeze/Rodino trend, and the ANSWER Coalition with its various constituent elements.

But the PDA and the PDA trend within the UFPJ seem to me to be the most dynamic elements within the socalled Left or Progressive Movement right now. By which I mean it is that trend which is most active, visible, with a lot of momentum which automatically attracts the newbilly-mobilized into its activities — and even a lot of old-billies — (I’m planning to attend the protest against spying by the CA National Guard, called by the targetted Code Pink, Raging Grannies, & Gold Star Moms, plus the local Vets For Peace led by the formidable Geo Main who has emerged as the pointman & main spokesperson of local Counter Recruiting efforts. (The beauty of Counter Recruiting is that the volunteers’ precise politics can be all over the spectrum: the bottom line is that anything that weakens the War Machine weakens the Imperial State — elegant, no? I love it:)

I have to marvel in spite of myself how neatly the same folks who last year ran the ABB snowjob have now morphed into the Wise & Noble Leaders of the Antiwar Movement. Here in Sactomato they’re pretty much The Only Game In Town.

So I stay home more now. But this business of surveilling grandmothers, the Lodi cases, the little airplane flying over the town apparently eavesdropping on conversations, the merging of the War on Terror with the War on Migrant Laborers…

So much as I hate having to stand around & listen to these PDA honchae pontificate on matters re which they can’t clearly distinguish their alimentary canal from a stone quarry — I don’t want to be accused of sitting on my hands at a time when a United Front (or whatever you want to call it) is needed. Not that I have any faith at all that any effective response to the National Security State will be possible with these Parking Meters running down the “Left” Conventional Wisdom.

Alternative Leadership? well, I have some opinions, but everything cant be crammed into one posted “comment”. I’ll see if anybody responds to this one, then figure what else needs to be said “if anything”:)

Okay, thass my take, sawl yrs… cuibono out:)

2) The Democratic Party is impervious to popular reform. Rules have been changed that keep it fully under the thumb of dedicated reactionaries.

3) Tens of millions of people have been effectively excluded from politics proper… and perhaps thinking big, but outside the electoral box is where we need to go.

4) Let straight-up liberals fight for THEIR party. For socialists and those who think Capitalism, Etc. is the problem: If we don’t have our OWN indpendent and grounded organizations and parties, we will get juiced like a lemon by the kind of “lopsided” alliances the Dems demand: In other words, we will do their shitwork while getting NOTHING in return… just like with Kerry and the rank chickenshittedness of “the left.”

5) This is not to insult anyone who think reform is possible or desirable. But we cannot let liberals lead the left. We must develop new “poles” of position in society. Avakian wrote in the current issue of Revolution about recognizing two things at once: Fascism is a real danger and we must defend democratic rights ferociously. But at the same time, we have to look historically at how Dimitrov’s “Popular Front” strategy is largely responsible for the collapse of the communist movement in Europe and the USA (and by extension through much of the world). This is real. We must put “red flags on the ground” through some means, even while we engage movements and struggles that aren’t thoroughly red.

If we don’t, we’ll never actually get anywhere.

Certainly it contains pertinent observations & suggestions. My concern is re what it represents as a political initiative. I’m concerned that it’s main raison d’etre may be to provide cover & run interference for the ABB trend, by which I mean the UFPJ/Peace Action/WinWithoutWar/Tikkun/Cobbogreens/”progressive democrats” crowd.

There are times when compromise is necessary. But these people sold out to the Ruling Class when there was nothing to be gained by it. they urged us to believe John Kerry represented some kind of “lesser evil”.

Re Dean, Kucinich et al: ever seen a mechanical dogtrack
rabbit? arf arf:)

The Demotweedle Party, like the AFL-CIA, the Urban Leak & the rest of the Invisible Plantation, various media figures etc etc, has developed a vast arsenal of gambits & bunco games by which they have so far been able to retain the loyalty of enough of the voting and/or active public to keep everything under control. The Dogtrack Rabbit election-time manuever is one of the most elegant Weapons of Mass Deception they’ve come up with. Fetch, Jesse, Fetch.

First to Don, then Stan:

I went to the Smedley Butler page & opened the link to the blue page with the commentary. I’m glad to see a site devoted to Gen Butler, whose writings were so helpful to me back in the early sixties when I was trying to figure out the basics of what was going on. But I’m sorry to have to say I didn’t see anything on the blue page that struck me as useful.

I”m a bit confused by your “two out of three” remark: are you saying that I was wrong about something? Please clarify? Thanks:)

Okay, I’m going to open a new comment form to address Stan’s comment…

A sound organizational house is built around an existing movement. The notion that if we build it, they will come works as a baseball-movie convention, but it has a very blippie result in real politics. That’s why all these lefty political sects exist, constructed around a “correct line,” “manifesto,” etc etc. They built a house that the movement was unprepared to occupy.

Existing organization around existing issues has to be united, and that means the long hard slog of public pedagogy that connects the dots. Existing power differentials based on patriarchy and national oppression (as this piece points out) suggest (accurately, in my view) that anything initiatied by a bunch of progressive white men has a snowball’s chance in hell.

When things like domestic violence and the US prison system are successfully associated with the war in Iraq, we will see some movement. But that implies some preemptive reciprocity on the part of all these smart white guys, along with the willingness to geninely accept Black, Brown, and female leadership. We have to weigh in on these other issues, and not just with a statement or manifesto that gives the correct position, but with our time and sweat.

If we are in the antiwar movement, then we have to inject these issues aggressively into that movement as part of this alliance-building. The adjacent post points out that right now, much of the energy in the antiwar work is overwhelmingly white and “middle class.”

Re your confession to being a “deaniac”, if I had allowed myself to be swindled that badly that recently, I don’t think I’d be presuming to offer advice to others.

The swindle wasn’t the “lost election” — it was the loss of the opportunity afforded by the election to present the case against the unjustified attack on Iraq & all the lies all the Demos except McKinney pretended to believe. It was the perfidy of Cobb & UFPJ et al in putting the Anti War movement on hold while rushing to embrace “ABB” — which in practice came down to All Out For Kerry; in other words for a candidate who openly proclaimed his support for the occupation of Iraq, differing with Dubya only that he boasted he could carry out the colonial enterprise more efficiently.

“Am I Right or Wrong”;)

This topic deserves serious reflection and discussion, because the present two-wing corporate party is intolerable. Intolerable!

The inside-outside concept sems like a winner to me. I recognize McKinney, she’s superb, don’t know Lee. The goal, I guess, would be to tie them and others into some organization with a mailing list. As an environmentalist I would favor the Greens. Let’s get some more thinking on it.

Major point: Whenever I hear some new age entrepreneur like Kucinich talking about “love” I involuntarily check the location of my wallet. & Whenever I hear some parking meter trying to peddle that tired “Inside-Outside Strategy” jive — which somehow always winds up meaning Inside, period — I know somebody is trying to set me up for another energy ripoff. “Anybody But Bush”, right?

Sorry, I don’t buy it. Swindle me once, you’re a lousy bandit. Swindle me twice, I’m a damn fool & deserve what I get:)

The simple fact is that it will take more than one election cycle to establish an “electoral vehicle” capable of contending for a share of power as a third force in this duopolized system. Either we’re prepared to forego the crumbs the Dumbocrats will promise but fail to deliver;) — or we’ll be nothing but grist for the imperial mill forever.