Good for Grover Furr to raise the issue of what "democracy" means that is
relevant to 60s movements. Basically, I would distinguish between his Marxism
and his Leninism re. the 60s in the following manner.
THIS Marxian read is, I'm inclined to believe, probably true, and it contains
a Marxian analytical view lacking in much of 60s movements:
>But what mainly
>taught me that the US is a dictatorship of the ruling class were the
>Vietnam War and Jim Crow system, both incompatible with any notion of
>democracy that means anything.
>
>...as long as you have classes, with one class in power over another, you
>have a class dictatorship. The idea that you can have "democracy"
>without communism -- i.e. a classless society -- is either naivete or
>outright deception.
However, the Leninist, "dictatorship of the proletariat", I don't find
compelling or compatible with the democratic vision that erupted in
the 1960s (by contrast, it IS compatible with the counterproductive --to
building a truly democratic movement-- militance of the Weathermen, et al of
the late 60s)
> Democracy has to have something pretty important to do with
>OUTCOMES, not just "inputs."
Very true, but reflecting the convergence of instrumental and
prefigurative politics of 60s movements, BOTH are necessary pieces of
democracy and of democratic movements.
Just my take.
Ted Morgan