Left Solidarity

Why criticize Democratic officials for anti-Democratic policies when they are the only alternative to repugs who are far, far, far worse?

Down with Tyranny explains:

"The fact still remains that the left doesn’t hang together well enough, and that that is going to cost a lot of people lives, jobs, health and so on. More and more as time goes on."

-- Ian Welsh, in his blogpost "One more note on the New York Gay Marriage, Cuomo and the Gay Rights Movement"

That's from the second of a series of three posts Ian put up yesterday, "Basics: anyone who will sell you out is on 'your side.'" a follow-up to the earlier, hearteningly titled "Less Cuomo fellation please":

Cuomo’s still busy destroying unions and crushing standards of living in New York. I’m so pro-gay marriage I once didn’t talk to my father for 6 months because of an argument over it, but it is not the only issue, and it does not make Cuomo a good governor any more than any other single issue does. He is still the enemy of anyone who believes economic justice, a fair wage or a good economy.

This, by the way, is another example of the shiny and how “progressives” get distracted by it. The corporate financial interests, aka. the people who are destroying your standard of living and denying you universal health care, are cool with gay marriage and other socially progressive issues. They don’t care whether you’re black, red, white, brown, pink with purple polka dots, or married to a man, woman, or someone in between, all they care is that you’re a debt slave or wage slave, squished firmly under their feet. Cuomo firmly follows the policies of that class of people, he has nothing against gays, he has everything against making bankers and rich people pay for destroying the economy and intends to force the poor and middle class to pay the entire freight.

But hey, you’ll be married to the man or woman of your choice when you get kicked out of your house or apartment after you lose your job.

Shiny!

In the second post he amplified:

Look, if a special interest that is nominally on the left is willing to sell out other parts of the left in order to get its little item, they are not on your side. Period. End of sentence. An alliance, coalition or ideological movement’s first and most important rule is solidarity:

NEVER SELL OUT YOUR ALLIES

NEVER MAKE A SEPARATE PEACE

Anyone who is willing to do so is not your friend, is not on your side, is not an ally and is no longer due support, and should be run out of town, absolutely destroyed. The only thing worse than an enemy is a traitor.

Any member of the left who is willing to make a separate peace is a traitor.

I’m too used to this sort of strategic and moral stupidity to cry, but the fact that people don’t understand this most basic of facts would make me weep if I had tears left. It is beyond pathetic that so-called members of the left don’t understand this.

The governor is still, Ian writes, "an evil fuck who's breaking unions, who are a core part of the left, and whose destruction will mean a significant decline in standards of living in the middle and working class because they are what pins wages at a higher level." And so --

the correct response to him signing the gay marriage bill is "good first step, but you still don't have our support as long as you are attacking key parts of the coalition and protecting our enemies." (And if you don't have the stomach to call bankers your enemies, you are a coward or a fool or your revenue stream comes from the oligarchy.)

In the final post, "One more note on the New York Gay Marriage, Cuomo and the Gay Rights Movement," gave a grudging bit of ground to groups on the left who would negotiate a "separate peace":

1) The left sells each other out for either small tactical gains, or nothing at all (hello national NARAL) all the time, so why shouldn’t the gays promise to help Cuomo in his next election for giving them gay marriage, even if it screws unions and helps an austerity governor?

2) The reason gays get anything is that unlike the rest of the left, they did two things: they cut off the donations, and they got ugly in people’s faces. They stopped playing nice. They stopped playing by the rules. They stopped worrying about whether people in power “liked” them (hello National NARAL) and started playing rough.

3) Given that the left doesn’t hang together, which means that the choice is “gay marriage + austerity”, or “no gay marriage + austerity”, well, why not gay marriage plus a shitty economy?

It remains true, however, that the Left's failure to hang together --

is going to cost a lot of people lives, jobs, health and so on. More and more as time goes on. There is only one cardinal rule to effective alliances, no separate peace. Those who are making a separate peace with Cuomo because they got what they care about more than anything else, are not allies of the rest of the left.

But when rats are deserting the ship, when everyone would rather hang separately, because they won’t hang together, perhaps a separate peace is all that can be hoped for. Let those few who think they can make it, do so, the rest can suck on the shitty economy, war and so on, that are coming down the line. “Every interest for itself” can be the battle cry of the left, I guess, the ultimate repudiation of the foundational beliefs that give, er, gave, the left moral authority.

Have you talked to your Democratic neighbors today?