The principal role of the left is to lend its energy and ideas to the empowerment of much larger class and social constituencies. In doing so it gains in experience and understanding as well as earns its leadership credentials in this wider social-political complex. Any idea that the left on its own can effect major social transformations finds no historical confirmation.
That understanding should deeply inform the politics of the left in these tumultuous times, when racial and class inequalities are so evident and the opportunity to clear the way for a new era of progress is within reach, only a election away.
And yet more than a few conversations on the left are primarily focused on the building of its own power apart from broader and powerful forces of social change.
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.
