SUMMARY; This paper is an appeal for unity based on principled struggle, allowing us to find common ground and keep working together. There is unity on important points: we should function openly, we should no longer attempt to consolidate around Marxism-Leninism, we should continue to uphold class analysis, self-determination and dialectical materialism, we should continue to recognize the unjust and essentially violent character of the capitalist system and work to replace it with something better; we agree that one-party states have fallen short of socialist ideals.
The majority paper still has some serious weaknesses. It lacks a clear class stand and a commitment to political organization of the working class. It continues to minimize the importance of theory. It suffers from its lack of a clear long-term political program and its reluctance to embrace socialism as an alternative to capitalism. It is contradictory as to whether Marxist-Leninists could participate in the new organization.
Some ideas on how we should function in the future. 1) There is no contradiction between being “open” and recognizing that some people (undocumented workers, people in the South, etc.) need special protection. 2) While people should be free to participate on whatever level they wish, collective functioning and accountability are critical. 3) To work together effectively we need strong internal political education. 4) We should approach electoral work with caution, and not tailor our politics or our other areas of work to the demands of winning office. 5) Anti-communism is a weapon used against most important social movements and has to be resisted. 6) While we may not be always made up of predominantly lower-strata working class people, these are the folks who will ultimately make revolution and we have to be grounded in their struggles.
Finally, I am critical of the antagonistic and inflexible tone adopted by the majority in their “brief response” to the minority. The conduct of the pre-Congress discussions has not encouraged a healthy or comradely exchange of views. We need to stop being so subjective, respect diversity of opinions and experience, approach political differences in a spirit of give and take and recognize that all of us have made, and will continue to make, valuable contributions.
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The comments that follow, though critical of key aspects of the emerging majority position, are offered in a spirit of unity/struggle/unity. I have belonged to the organization since its inception. I feel fortunate to call individuals on the CC majority my comrades and friends, and have the highest respect for the contributions and sacrifices they have made over the years. I have similar feelings about the five comrades who signed the minority position. Though I have strong opinions about the direction we should take, my primary concern is that we continue to work together. I learned long ago that it is far easier to break un an existing organization than to build a new one from scratch, and I think history will judge us harshly if the gains we have made in the course of our twelve year history are squandered because we could find no constructive way to resolve the political differences that now divide us.
“Congress Papers 2” shows the comrades in the majority group at their best and worst. Though I disagree with much of “Stepping forward into the 1990’s” and the attached appendix, in many respects it is a thoughtful document with serious points to make, and a considerable improvement over the majority’s earlier published position.
The majority’s “Brief response” to the minority paper, on the other hand, is a case study of why the pre-Congress discussions, which should be an exciting, educational and empowering experience for us all, have been such a hellish business many of us who have honest differences with the CC majority. Since I agree with much of what the minority people had to say, I could not read this harsh attack on them without feeling that it could easily have been directed at myself.
I want to address three questions. First, I want to identify where I still have problems with the majority position, while reiterating where I believe there remains a basis for unity in the organization. Second, since those of us critical of the majority have been repeatedly exhorted to “come up with something better,” I make some tentative suggestions as to how to deal with our current problems of organization, structure and political line. Ultimately I believe such questions can only resolved collectively, by the entire organization, so individual opinions are necessarily limited.
Finally, I am reluctantly addressing the question of process, even though I feel it is secondary to the political questions. If the tenor of the majority’s “Brief response” continues to characterize the pre-Congress discussions, it won’t matter which point of view prevails, because the atmosphere will be too poisoned for us to function effectively in the future. If we hope to keep working together under any kind of principles or structure, we must restore the mutual cooperation, respect and trust which have enabled us to work so well in the past.
Here are the points on which most everybody seems to agree; they should be the starting point for further discussions of our future.
1. We cannot sustain ourselves as a consolidated Marxist-Leninist organization, at least not in the coming period. In the first place, the political climate in the U.S. today does not permit it. In the second place, a substantial number of comrades, probably a majority, no longer consider themselves Marxist-Leninists. We need to find a new basis of unity, reflective of these realities but consistent with the principles that have always guided us.
2. Clandestine organization is a liability we can no longer afford. As the majority paper puts it, we must “contend for the hearts and minds of the people in an open and public way.”
3. In the current, non-revolutionary period, we cannot continue to insist on the same level of discipline and commitment that we have expected of each other in the past.
4. Our analysis of US society and the fight to change it should be grounded in dialectical materialism and class analysis. (I was gratified to find this explicitly stated in the latest majority paper.)
5. We continue to uphold Lenin’s analysis of the national question and the right of oppressed nations to self-determination, and our own past application of this analysis to the oppressed nationalities within US borders. (Once again, the majority’s latest paper is a welcome improvement over its earlier statements on this issue.)
6. We continue to believe that capitalism bears the main responsibility for the rampant social problems in the US today and the much of the suffering in the world, that it ultimately relies on violence to stay in power, and that democracy, equality and social justice require that it be replaced by a better system. (Since members of the CC majority have said this forthrightly in discussion, I trust they would be willing to revise their written position to eliminate any lingering ambiguities here.)
7. The events of the past year in the socialist world suggest that attempts to build socialism through the mechanism of a one-party state are unworkable and self-defeating. They alienate the party from the masses and undermine popular support for the revolution.
These views are expressed in both the majority and minority papers. Rather than haggling over points where there is essential agreement, we should focus on areas where unity does not yet exist. We should also recognize that the two “aspects of Marxism-Leninism” that generate the most controversy in our ranks, the vanguard party and the dictatorship of the proletariat, are not on the organization’s practical agenda right now. We are not in a position to form a vanguard party, even if we wanted to. We are certainly not about to seize state power. A debate focused on these two points is necessarily abstract and inconclusive.
In this spirit, I raise the following criticisms of the majority position, which, though improved, does not yet provide an adequate basis for a viable and enduring revolutionary organization.
1. What will we stand for? “Fundamental change” is not an adequate political program. It is not even a good slogan. It does not distinguish us from countless others who are dissatisfied with this society are but have radically different objectives. Fundamentalist Christians, right-to-lifers, terrorists and skinheads all want “fundamental change.” So do radical environmentalist crazies who love trees but hate people. If we expect people to take us seriously, to take on the uncertainties and risks which a major challenge to the system would entail, we owe them a them a clear statement of what we want to replace it with. This is why, in seeking popular support, we lose far more than we gain by hedging our bets on the question of socialism. Saying we want to “out human needs before private profit,” as if it were a matter of misplaced priorities rather than the inhumanity of the profit system itself, is not enough.
2. How do we view the working class? The majority treats it like just another progressive constituency group with its own set of immediate grievances against the system. Defining “working class empowerment,” the majority talks about electoral representation, union rights, job safety, etc. It says that working people should be “respected.” Nowhere in its discussion of what we want for the US working class does it mention the most critical point, the injustice from which all other injustices in this society flows the fact that working people must sell their labor power to others in order to survive. So long as this situation persists, working people will never be truly free or empowered.
3. Classes and class struggle. The majority still seems hung up on an abstract concept of “universal human rights,” overlooking that the “rights” of the ruling class are enjoyed at the direct expense of the rights of workers and oppressed nationalities. As long as a monopoly capitalist class exists which owes its own wealth, its power, its very existence as a class to the oppression and exploitation of others, “fundamental change” is not possible. In order for working people and oppressed people to win what is rightfully theirs, the monopoly capitalist class as a class will have to be eliminated and its individual members stripped of their wealth, power, influence and privilege and forced to live like the rest of us. Don’t expect them to like it.
In Peace, Justice, Equality and Socialism we argue that 98%, of the population has a stake in the overthrow of the monopoly capitalism, and we believe it will be accomplished by a broad united front of different class forces. Around immediate demands we will frequently be able to make tactical alliances with sections of the monopoly capitalist class as well, and some individuals from this class will undoubtedly be won over to revolution. But as a class the only interest the monopoly capitalists have in “fundamental change” is making sure it doesn’t happen.
4. How relevant is theory? The majority writes, “We should not be wedded to any ’ism.’” I agree, but Marxism-Leninism is not just any “’ism.’” It is the only body of thought that consciously stands on the side of working and oppressed peoples, sums up the experiences of their struggle, addresses the problems of working class organization and empowerment, and applies the scientific method in doing so. Our experience has taught us much about this subject, but it will be hard to draw the necessary lessons without a theoretical framework grounded in a clear working class stand.
Marxism-Leninism has no monopoly on wisdom. Like most sciences, it is imperfect and constantly being enriched and developed by practical experience. If people disagree with aspects of it, fine, but they should not dismiss it as a form of mental bondage.
5. What can we learn from other countries? Arguing against a dogmatic application of Marxism, the majority points out that Marx’s doctrine of a clear and decisive defeat of capitalism by socialism has not worked in third world countries like Zimbabwe and Nicaragua. Impoverished and hemmed in by the capitalist world market, these revolutionary societies have had to occupy a kind of middle ground between the two systems, to preserve their gains in the face of constant imperialist pressure.
It’s an interesting point, but it doesn’t apply to a wealthy imperialist power like the United States. What basis is there for a “transitional” society here? In practice such an approach by US revolutionaries would make it harder on revolutionary third world countries, whose options will continue to be limited as long as the US monopoly capitalist class retains significant power. Here I think the majority has unwittingly shown us once again the pitfalls of uncritically applying foreign models of revolution, however positive or worthwhile.
6. Who are we fighting for? The majority and minority positions both contain internal weaknesses and contradictions, and on certain points overlap each other, but in their present forms they offer a very clear choice on one point. The minority continues to feel that the independent political organization of the working class (though not necessarily through a traditional vanguard party) is absolutely critical to the forging of a strategic alliance and the mounting of an effective challenge to capitalism. They feel we need to work towards this end, regardless of the obvious barriers to working class political participation in this society and the obvious burdens it would place on us.
The majority, on the other hand, appears to have abandoned working class organization as a viable goal–either because they don’t think we can do it, or because they feel that it somehow diminishes the role of other progressive class forces, or because the whole notion of class-based political organization is contrary to their emerging conception of democracy. The lack of a clear class stand is the most glaring weakness in their paper, and in my opinion it transcends all the arguments about structure, theory or strategy.
The majority has taken strong (and emotional) exception to any implication, real or imagined, that they have “sold out” the working class, pointing to their history of sacrifices and commitment. That being so, they should have no problem with revising their written position so that it acknowledges the reality of the class struggle and reaffirms our commitment to working class power, however long or difficult the process and however limited our ability to realize it at this time.
7. How broad an organization? The majority’s assertion that conscious Marxist-Leninists would be welcome in the new organization cannot be reconciled with its claim that “aspects of Marxism-Leninism are antithetical to the vision we hold of a democratic and just society.” I’ll admit a selfish concern here: I still consider myself a Marxist-Leninist. I’d like to know where I stand with these folks.
1. On secrecy. In this historical period it is critically important to defend socialism in the public arena, to counteract the propaganda blitz that followed the collapse of Soviet-style socialism in eastern Europe. We have to be able to point out that the fundamental problems we face in the US today cannot be solved under capitalism and that only socialism holds open the possibility of a better life for the masses of people. We cannot do this effectively if most of our members are not even free to disclose their connection with the organization and what it stands for. We need to function openly to consolidate our gains in the mass movements, build our forces, protect our united front ties and defend ourselves effectively against attack.
This raises several serious practical questions. To what extent should we make adjustments in our political line in order to “go public”? The political climate in this country today clearly does not permit the effective functioning of an openly Marxist-Leninist organization. Even association with socialism appears threatening to some of our members, especially those who aspire to public office or professional careers. What about people like undocumented workers who are denied even the most elementary protections of free speech and freedom of association, who could be deported just for joining a union?
Here are some suggested guidelines.
As a general principle, people who join the organization should be willing and able to be function as open members of a socialist organization. Running people for public office poses certain special problems are discussed in the section on electoral politics, below. We should do our best to avoid situations where members have to deny their affiliation as the price of getting elected. If they can’t mount serious campaigns without doing this, they probably shouldn’t be running at all and we should look for other ways to make our presence felt in the electoral arena. Another option would be a kind of informal associate membership status for political candidates and other highly visible public figures who agree with the organization’s line but are not formally subject to its discipline, and are more effective outside the organization than in. Paul Robeson had this kind of relationship to the CPUSA.
However, we should also be prepared to relax our policy of openness in the case of undocumented and lower strata workers or people in the South who face severe reprisals if they “go public.” We should bear in mind that for these people, simply watering down our politics to an “acceptable” level is no solution. In Mississippi, even the NAACP has to operate in secret. The civil liberties which are to some degree respected in society as a whole are often largely absent for the most exploited and oppressed sectors of the population. We want to recruit these people, and we should be prepared to take the necessary steps to protect them. Anybody who has ever seen a union drive in an open shop state will readily understand our reasons for doing so.
2. Democratic centralism. If we are to recruit effectively, retain our members and ensure morale, we have to accept people’s contributions at whatever level they are prepared to make them. We are living in a non-revolutionary situation and we cannot expect our members to behave as though we were preparing to storm the barricades. Over time, our most committed people get tired of keening the rest of their lives on hold. Working class people whose lives are difficult enough as is most likely won’t even have that option. Our sole criteria for joining ought to be agreement with the organization’s line and practice and a willingness to carry it out at whatever level is feasible and comfortable.
However, this does not mean there should not be accountability, discipline, unity of action and purpose. Working class people are not going to waste their time in an organization like DSA where everybody does their own thing, where ideas are debated endlessly and decisions are never carried out.
Members should be free to choose their own areas of work, but should respect collective discipline within those areas. There should be regular and systematic sharing of ideas and experiences among different work areas; it would be the responsibility of the leadership to ensure that this happens, so that all members can partake meaningfully in the development of our political line, rather than simply being compartmentalized in their particular areas of work. Major political decisions should be made at district-wide meetings, with the entire organization (including those in the minority) responsible for carrying them out.
Leadership should be directly elected. It should oversee theoretical work and political education, sum up the different areas of practical work, synthesize the ideas and experiences of the different mass work areas and develop proposals related to our political line for the membership to discuss. It should not intervene actively in the different work areas, a practice which leads to over-centralization and paternalism and inhibits the development of new leadership. It should not play a partisan role in organizational debates, but should strive to develop positions around which embrace the best aspects of all points of view, and can unite the organization.
3. Political education. Revolutionary practice is impossible without an overview of how capitalist society functions, what will be required to change it and what it means to understand the world in a scientific way. We need to maintain a climate in this organization where all members, regardless of educational level or class background, can grapple with these questions and feel confident and comfortable doing so. This requires a strong program of internal political education, presented in concrete, understandable terms and developed with the same care and thoughtfulness that we put into Unity articles. To struggle out political differences within the organization in a constructive and principled way, with full participation by all, we need a common language and a common method of analysis. This is especially important for people whom this society has denied the opportunity for a formal education.
The leadership should be responsible for developing such a program. All members would participate. Special efforts should be made to accommodate those who have trouble reading. Study should include exposure to Marx’s ideas on economics and philosophy, Lenin’s views of imperialism, economists and the national question, Mao’s writing on the united front, New Democracy and the mass line, as well as other revolutionary figures like Malcolm X, DuBois and Cabral. It should also involve regular discussion of the major issues of the day, seeking to understand them in Marxian terms.
4. On electoral politics. Though we have played a critical role in the Jackson campaign and other progressive electoral campaigns, only within the last year have we run our own members for public office. We have met with dramatic success, but we have also exposed ourselves to serious attack, forcing some difficult choices upon us. We need a thoughtful reassessment of what we hope to gain from our electoral work, and what kind of problems it poses, before committing ourselves further.
Electoral politics is a crucial arena of struggle. Jesse Jackson has shown how much it can do to advance the struggle for democratic rights. Still, power in society ultimately rests in control over the means of production, and crucial social decisions like investment or allocation of society’s resources are made in corporate board rooms, out of reach of the voters. Furthermore, the bourgeoisie exercises a particularly high level of control over the electoral arena. Revolutionaries enter it at a distinct disadvantage. Campaigns are expensive, time-consuming and can drain off resources from other areas. There is a much narrower range of permissable politics. Our experience has already shown that the same revolutionary stand that makes someone an effective strike leader can become a major liability in running for office.
The greatest danger lies in the constant pressure to tailor one’s politics or one’s approach to other areas of struggle to the demands of electoral success. I agree with the minority that we should develop additional means of getting our political agenda out there besides running our own people. We can learn from the CPUSA in the 1930’s, which played a critical role in shaping the New Deal legislative program and electing progressive officials, while running only a few of its own members for office.
Campaigns we undertake should bear a clear and organic relationship to the mass work (as was the case in both the Watsonville and Oakland school board campaigns). We should try to build up a strong, openly socialist presence in the different mass struggles and establish our reputation as revolutionaries who are also effective fighters for popular demands. That way, when we do seek office, we will not have to run for cover when red-baiting starts.
If we have not laid sufficient groundwork in the mass movements for our electoral campaigns, there is a danger of getting caught in the bourgeois electoral style of playing to the lowest common denominator, putting out only what we feel we can “get away with.” This could seriously undermine our freedom of action and our ability to fight on other fronts.
We should try to run campaigns with a high level of mass involvement, opening up avenues for organizing that will continue after the ballots are counted. We should never view the purpose of a campaign as simply to win – by those standards, the Jackson campaigns flopped. Campaigns should organize people, focus attention on crucial demands, strengthen the fight for democratic rights and expose the contradictions in the system.
5. On anti-communism. Our recent experiences with red-baiting should serve to remind us that it has been directed at virtually every important social movement of the 20th century, from unions to civil rights (the FBI believed Martin Luther King was a communist) to the anti-war movement of the 1960’s. Anti-communism is particularly virulent in this country because, alone among the capitalist ruling classes of the world, the U.S. bourgeoisie has never had to contend for power or share power with other class forces. It therefore feels no compulsion to tolerate the ideologies of other classes, and can freely characterize them as “un-American.” This is a major problem of making revolution in the U.S., and we will have to confront it head-on if we ever hope to achieve our objectives.
If we hope to combat anti-communism effectively, and counteract its debilitating effect on the mass movements, we can’t condone it in our own ranks. Whether individual members agree with Marxism-Leninism or not, it should still be taken seriously and respected as a philosophy which has made enormous contributions to the liberation struggles of oppressed peoples and the working class, and has in fact been central to nearly all of those struggles.
7. Building the organization. Ideally our organization should be strongly rooted in the multinational working class; these are the people who will have to make the revolution in this country. But in practice we have found that recruiting people out of these areas is a slow, frustrating business, and retaining them, integrating them into the life of the organization, can be equally so. It requires a high level of discipline and commitment, higher than we are capable of right now. We have found we can recruit people off the campus much faster, and that’s where most of our recruiting has been done the past few years.
“Opening up” the organization may change this situation, but not much. There are objective reasons why it is so difficult for working people to become politically active, even though they have the greatest stake in revolution and often have the clearest sense of what needs to be done.
When Lenin wrote What is to be done? he was trying to address this problem. The working class movement in prerevolutionary Russia was extremely militant and class conscious, but it lacked staying power. There would be an upsurge of activity, then everything would fall apart until the next crisis. The Bolshevik party sought to give organizational and political continuity to the struggle, so that it did not have to rebuild from scratch every time objective conditions turned unfavorable.
This is not Tsarist Russia, and we are not trying to build a Bolshevik party. But do need to take up the task of providing continuity and long-term direction for the working class movement. We should judge our success not by the number of bodies we recruit at any given time, but by our ability to sink deep roots into the struggles of the multinational working class. We have to consciously develop a working class political line, applying it and testing it out in practice. And we have to maintain an atmosphere in the organization so that working people who join us can truly feel that it’s theirs, that they can draw strength from their membership just as the organization draws strength from them.
Inevitably, there will be times when we attract more educated, middle class people. This is OK, because we need everybody. No one’s contribution should be slighted because of their class background or the way they earn their living. The main thing is to remember the kind of organization we are ultimately trying to build, to “keep our eyes on the prize” and not make a virtue out of a necessity.
People in the majority have identified me with the “minority position.” I’m not happy with this jacket, not because I feel any need to dissociate myself from the minority, but because the whole notion of contending “majority” and “minority” positions strikes me as profoundly contrary to the spirit of democratic centralism. Anybody who has seen comrades from the CC majority and minority interact with each other over the last few months can see that these people have obviously lost the ability to struggle with each other. I’m not assigning blame; I assume there is plenty to go around. The point is that the whole organization is paying the price. The majority’s “Brief response” is an escalation of the conflict which will accomplish nothing positive for either side.
As I understand it, the job of leadership under democratic centralism is to sum up the ideas and experiences from the different sectors of the organization and come up with a workable synthesis of them around which we all can unite and work together. This has not happened. Instead, a majority of the CC has developed its own view – a rather controversial one, I might add – and instead of attempting to incorporate other people’s ideas, has tried to win over the rest of the organization to its own, in effect isolating those who disagree. This has created a very bad dynamic. A climate of suspicion and mistrust has arisen. Some, feeling they’re being railroaded, have openly resisted, not always in constructive or principled ways. Others have become passive or cynical. Still others go along with the majority because, as individuals, they don’t feel strong enough to challenge what is happening or know they could never implement their ideas without the organization’s backing, and such backing seems unlikely without the leadership’s support.
Critics of the majority proposal have been challenged to “come up with a better idea,” then criticized because their ideas are inconsistent or divorced from practice – as they inevitably must be, there is no way a fully coherent opposition view could develop independent of the day-to-day collective functioning of the organization. I have my own ideas about the direction we should go in, but I am not so arrogant as to think my individual ideas are any substitute for the wisdom of the collective. I don’t think the majority opinion fills the bill either. The more fragmented we become, the more polarized the debate becomes, the more we all become prisoners of our own weaknesses.
I have never questioned the good faith, much less the commitment, of the comrades in the majority. But reading the last paragraph of their “brief response” I understood all too clearly the rigid mentality that has given rise to the mess we are in. I have been operating under the assumption that the current struggle would be a process of give and take, that people’s viewpoints could be strengthened and refined by exposure to different viewpoints. I have approached the majority’s viewpoint in that spirit. My own thinking has gone through changes since the process began; for instance, I no longer think we can remain an M-L organization.
But because the minority has attempted to make accommodations to the majority’s views, the “brief response” characterizes them as unprincipled, irresponsible, lacking the courage of their convictions, etc. What kind of message does this send to the rest of us?
The “Brief response” seems to be responding to a completely different document than the one the minority has published. I too was irked by the minority’s decision to raise anew the question of the timing of the Congress, since that issue has already been decided and there isn’t much point in haggling over it. But the rest of the paper, while critical of the majority views, represented them fairly and took a temperate and thoughtful approach to the political questions under discussion. At no time did it stoop to personal innuendoes or attacks. I saw nothing in it which could be construed as advocating “two-line struggle,” that process associated with the Cultural Revolution in China where every political or personal difference was raised to the level of class war and everyone who disagreed with you should was a class enemy.
The minority does have a legitimate complaint about the pre-Congress discussions. If the majority was unwilling to accommodate their views, it should at least have allowed them the opportunity to develop a coherent alternative. This would have been a far from ideal solution, but at least it would have been preferable to everyone having to swallow a questionable majority proposal regardless of its shortcomings or their own misgivings.
The majority has chosen to answer in a highly personal, defensive, how-dare-you tone which offers scant encouragement to anyone else who might want to question their ideas. They invoke the sacrifices they have made, as though no one else had made them. (I’m beginning to feel like these folks have sacrificed too much: their preoccupation with what they have given up seems to have overwhelmed their normal good judgment.) They recklessly claim the “overwhelming majority of lower strata workers in this organization agree” with them. (I thought we were still at the discussion stage, but apparently the ballots have already been counted in some areas.) Most disturbing to me, they make no distinction between people’s individual views and the views around which the organization should consolidate. Such a distinction must be made in any organization which welcomes different points of view within its ranks.
Without endorsing everything they have said or done, I would respectfully suggest that the organization needs the ideas, experience and input of the five comrades who have been singled out for attack. One of them wrote the Sunbelt paper, which the majority proudly embraces as our contribution to an “indigenous theory” of US revolution. One of them had sufficient “courage of his convictions” to lead his union local as an open communist for many years. The other three have had main responsibility for our BLM work, and one leads a thriving mass organization in St. Louis. These people, and the different views they espouse, represent something valuable which should not be lost to us. One of the five has said from the outset that he agrees with 70% of the majority line. He probably has more unity with the majority than I do. Should it really be so difficult for the majority to deal with that other 30%?
The all-or-nothing approach the majority has taken puts people like myself in a difficult position. I don’t know what kind of a future I have in the organization, but I’m not ready to leave just yet. For one thing, I’m too ornery to give up without a fight. For another thing, I have known the comrades in the majority faction long enough to know that they are far better people than their “brief response” would indicate. The document was obviously written in the heat of anger. My hope is that people will calm down enough that we can start thinking and talking to each other again. A lot of people out there are counting on us to get our act together.