A Voice From The Left-The Latest
From The Steve Lendman Website
A link below to link to
the Steve Lendman website
http://stephenlendman.org/
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Over the years that I have been
presenting political material in this space I have had occasion to re-post
items from some sites which I find interesting, interesting for a host of
political reasons, although I am not necessarily in agreement with what has
been published. Two such sites have stood out, The Rag Blog, which I like to re-post items from because it has
articles by many of my fellow Generation of ’68 residual radicals and
ex-radicals who still care to put pen to paper and the blog cited here, the Steve Lendman Blog. The reason for
re-postings from this latter site is slightly different since the site
represents a modern day left- liberal political slant. That is the element, the
pool if you will, that we radicals have to draw from, have to move left from,
if we are to grow. So it is important to have the pulse of what issues motivate
that milieu and I believe that this blog is a lightning rod for those
political tendencies.
I would also add that the blog is a
fountain of rational, reasonable and unrepentant anti-Zionism which became
apparent once again in the summer of 2014 when defense of the Palestinian
people in Gaza was the pressing political issue and we were being stonewalled
and lied to by the bourgeois media in service of American and Israeli
interests. This blog then as now was like a breath of fresh air.
A Jackman disclaimer:
I place some material in this space which I believe may be
of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or
support. One of the worst aspects of the old New Left back in the 1970s as
many turned to Marxism after about fifty other theories did not work out
(mainly centered on some student-based movements that were somehow to bring
down the beast without a struggle for state power) was replicating the worst of
the old Old Left and freezing out political debate with other opponents on
the Left to try to clarify the pressing issues of the day. That freezing out ,
more times than I care to mention including my own behavior a few times,
included physical exclusion and intimidation. I have since come
to believe that the fight around programs and politics is what makes us
different, and more interesting. The mix of ideas, personalities and
programs, will sort themselves out in the furnace of the revolution
as they have done in the past.
Off-hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be
easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up
than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these various blogs
and other networking media. But part of that struggle for the socialist
revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for
that more just world that animates our efforts. So read on.
An additional Jackman comment (Fall 2014):
The left-liberal/radical arena in
American politics has been on a steep decline since I was a
whole-hearted denizen of that milieu in my youth somewhere slightly to the left
of Robert Kennedy back in 1968 say but still emerged in trying put band-aids on
the capitalist system. That is the place where Steve Lendman with his
helpful well informed blog finds himself. It is not an enviable place to be for
anyone to have a solid critique of bourgeois politics, hard American imperial
politics in the 21st century and have no ready source in that milieu to take on
the issues and make a difference (and as an important adjunct to
that American critique a solid critique of the American government acting as
front-man for every nefarious move the Israeli government makes toward
increasing the oppression of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank).
Of course I had the
luxury, if one could call it that, which a look at Mr. Lendman's bio
information indicates that he did not have, was the pivotal
experience in the late 1960s of being inducted, kicking and screaming but
inducted, into the American army in its losing fight against the heroic
Vietnamese resistance. That signal event disabused me, although it took a
while to get "religion." on the question of the idea of
depending on bourgeois society to reform itself. On specific issues like
the fight against the death penalty, the fight for the $15 minimum
wage, immigration reform and the like I have worked with that
left-liberal/ radical milieu, and gladly, but as for continuing to believe
against all evidence that the damn thing can be reformed that is where we
part company. Still Brother Lendman keep up the good work and I hope you find a
political home worthy of your important
work.
