NEW RADICALISM
539
by any invidious labels; it
is
not imported from abroad.
It
is
probably
inherent in activism-which explains why activism always has
to
be
fit into an ideological framework, and why it otherwise
has
no mean–
ing except in a personal existential sense that
is
beyond the concern of
politics and irrelevant as a guide to the outcome of social struggle.
Much more could be said on this subject, but I want to devote
my remaining space to the criticisms that have been made of the
coalition strategy some of us have advocated.
III
First of all, the object of coalition politics
is
not, as some have
charged, an accommodation to "liberalism-as-usual." It
is
rather an
attempt to build what does not now exist in
this
country-a liberal–
radical
movement.
There exist causes and organizations and loose
forms of
ad hoc
cooperation. (Indeed, this amorphousness
is
one good
definition of liberalism-as-usual.) But there
is
nothing that can be
described as a political
movement.
Nor
is
the movement I refer to
merely the pulling together of existing organizational bureaucracies,
although even
this
would effect a positive qualitative change within
those bureaucracies, with beneficial consequences for American poli–
tics. Increasing cooperation and mutual support are already in
evidence among the elements of the "coalition," one example being
the statement of the national civil rights leadership in favor of repeal–
ing 14-b and the simultaneous yeoman work of the AFL-CIO on
behalf of civil rights legislation. (Incidentally many new radicals,
addicted to talk about the liberal "Establishment," have no idea how
recent such active cooperation
is,
or the extent to which it lays the
basis for new departures.)
The coalition I have advocated has been confused, sometimes
deliberately, with the Johnson coalition; Staughton Lynd goes so far
as to accuse me of being in "coalition with the marines." The confu–
sion might be understandable
if
I and others of my persuasion had not
so unequivocally spoken out in opposition to Administration policies
in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic, or in criticism of the War
on Poverty. But inasmuch as vocal spokesmen for the New Left find
it necessary to polarize the political population into two camps--one
made up of those who accept its formulations, the other made up of
cold-warriors and capitulators to the Establishment-it seems neces-
