I’m not sure what the value is of articles on bottom up organizing in the community or labor movement that are filled with lots of prescriptive advice — do this and that, we need this and that — and the latest organizing terminology, but are also notable in their failure to mention, let alone stress, the strategic imperative of defeating Trump and the Republican right next year. They lack, what I call, political embeddedness. Without the latter, such articles and analyses are problematic. And maybe that is putting it too nicely. The anti-electoralist, anti-Democratic Party strain of thinking on the left no longer packs the same wallop as it once did, but it still surfaces — sometimes reflexively — in people’s thinking.
Written by
Sam Webb
I'm a long-time socialist and activist, but new to the blogging world. I hope to bring a different perspective on politics, sports, culture, and Marxism. Besides blogging, I also leave plenty of time for swimming, hiking, ESPN, music, reading, drinking good beer, and, not least, my family and friends. I wish I could play basketball, but my knees ruled out that possibility long ago.
While I currently reside in New York, my politically formative years were spent in Portland, Me. and Detroit during the 1970s and 1980s. I graduated from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia (where I played basketball) and received a MA in economics from the University of Connecticut.
I was the national chairperson of the Communist Party, USA from 2000 until 2014 when I stepped down at the convention. In 2016 I resigned from the Communist Party two years later. We were no longer on the same page.
