From:    Jason A Schulman 
To:      marxism-international
Subject: Re: M-I: For a culture of scientific discussion (Ben replies
Date:    Friday, April 10, 1998 6:15 PM

Carrol Cox writes:

>Forgive my ignorance, but what precisely did Jackson do that actively
>joins him to the forces of reaction? Endorse Clinton? (Whaddaya expect
>from a liberal?)
>
>"Endorse Clinton?" Yes. And of course the core of this current thread
>revolves around what marxists *can* legitimately and usefully expect 
>with "liberals" before joining forces with them, in however limited a
way. 
>And my present tendency is to say that one of our primary tasks is to 
>expose Clinton, *and the Democratic Party as an institution*, as the
slime 
>they are. I do not consider that "ultra-leftist" [...]
>Now Jackson may not be a turncoat (as Louis P points out, it is not 
>very profound to discover that Jesse is not nor ever was a
revolutionary), 
>but in a way he is, for what he is doing now (however consonant with his
>"real" personal motives in 1988) is a total betrayal of everything he 
>at least pretended to stand for then.

Carrol, dear comrade, Jesse is and has always been an opportunist.  I
assumed you knew that in the heyday of the Rainbow Coalition.  Recall
that in 1984 Jackson was much closer to his days as an opponent of
abortion rights and a supporter of petty bourgeois Black enterprise as
the road to Black empowerment.  He didn't start calling for a sort of
racially inclusive New Deal until around 1987 or so.

It seems pretty silly now (hell, it seemed pretty silly then) -- the way
parts the sectarian left, the League for Revolutionary Struggle and other
Maoists in particular, took the line of "Jesse is god and the Rainbow
will last forever" -- they could  never explain why the Rainbow as a real
democratic organization  never got off the ground (and is in the dustbin
of history as Jesse increasingly uses PUSH, once again, as his base of
operation to rip off corporations for some useful crumbs of jobs, etc.).

Just pisses me off that this guy is supposedly Mumia Abu-Jamal's spritual
adviser.

-- Jason
_____
"Poverty degrades, but wealth perverts." - Issac Puente


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