Coalition politics: 1 x 1 or All x Every?

[Mairead]

There seem to be two different views on how to do coalition politics (maybe there're more).

One is: one action, one issue. Everyone gets behind that one issue even if it isn't their own, trusting that their issue's turn will come.

The other is: every action, every issue. The idea being that it's better to keep the issue visible than let it disappear until its turn comes round again.

ANSWER takes the every/every position, and get the crap critisised out of them for it.

I can remember NOW getting beaten up for the same thing in the '70s: "we could get the ERA passed except that you guys scare the leisure suits with your talk of equal rights for queers. Can't you tell the dykes to shut up until we get the ERA? Then we'd have time to deal with the other issues."

During the '60s, women were promised equal rights if we'd just handle the cooking and cleaning for the movement and support the men while they did the important work.

In the '50s, Black folk were told that equal rights were on the way. It was a message they'd heard since the Revolutionary War.

So what's the best way?

[anaxarchos]

There seem to be two different views on how to do coalition politics (maybe there're more).

One is: one action, one issue. Everyone gets behind that one issue even if it isn't their own, trusting that their issue's turn will come.

The other is: every action, every issue. The idea being that it's better to keep the issue visible than let it disappear until its turn comes round again.

ANSWER takes the every/every position, and get the crap critisised out of them for it.

I can remember NOW getting beaten up for the same thing in the '70s: "we could get the ERA passed except that you guys scare the leisure suits with your talk of equal rights for queers. Can't you tell the dykes to shut up until we get the ERA? Then we'd have time to deal with the other issues."

During the '60s, women were promised equal rights if we'd just handle the cooking and cleaning for the movement and support the men while they did the important work.

In the '50s, Black folk were told that equal rights were on the way. It was a message they'd heard since the Revolutionary War.

So what's the best way?

If you pose the question badly, you'll get a bad answer...

If you went to the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington with the demand that Gay Rights be given "proper weight" on the agenda, you would have gotten nowhere. That was not the basis for the March, nor could it have been.

Name a single mass event in the last 30 years that achieved numbers through a "marketbasket of issues".

Just a fact...

Marketbaskets are for the Democratic Party "Coalition", which ain't a coalition.

[Mairead]

If you pose the question badly, you'll get a bad answer...

If you went to the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington with the demand that Gay Rights be given "proper weight" on the agenda, you would have gotten nowhere. That was not the basis for the March, nor could it have been.

Name a single mass event in the last 30 years that achieved numbers through a "marketbasket of issues".

Just a fact...

Marketbaskets are for the Democratic Party "Coalition", which ain't a coalition.

I hear you. So how do we get past the reciprocity problem? It's very real, as I'm sure you know as well as I do.

[Raphaelle]

That is what it should be. Period. But the arguments--the exposes may be from varying perspectives-- lies, economic, lies, humanitarian, lies, deception by all political parties, lies, common decency, lies, unequal sacrifice, lies, oil, lies, ME policy, lies, destruction of the cradle of civilization, lies, socialization of the means, privitazation of the profits, lies, whoring media, lies, blah blah, lies, and so on.

[Two Americas]

There seem to be two different views on how to do coalition politics (maybe there're more).

One is: one action, one issue. Everyone gets behind that one issue even if it isn't their own, trusting that their issue's turn will come.

The other is: every action, every issue. The idea being that it's better to keep the issue visible than let it disappear until its turn comes round again.

ANSWER takes the every/every position, and get the crap criticised out of them for it.

I can remember NOW getting beaten up for the same thing in the '70s: "we could get the ERA passed except that you guys scare the leisure suits with your talk of equal rights for queers. Can't you tell the dykes to shut up until we get the ERA? Then we'd have time to deal with the other issues."

During the '60s, women were promised equal rights if we'd just handle the cooking and cleaning for the movement and support the men while they did the important work.

In the '50s, Black folk were told that equal rights were on the way. It was a message they'd heard since the Revolutionary War.

So what's the best way?

Neither, and both.

All of the issues are important - as starting points for radicalizing people - and none of the issues are important as stand alone causes or make-or-break litmus tests.

The causes and the issues are symptoms. Each one of them represents an opportunity to move people into an awareness of class struggle. None of them should ever be allowed to break up or prevent that awareness, or used to divide and conquer working class people.

The war is a terrible cause as a make-or-break issue, and a mediocre one, at best, for a starting point.

Corruption, health care, the Constitution, and many others are stronger and more people can relate to them and they are much more likely to lead to Left wing political success.