Michael Perelman wrote: > > I have to disagree. Such knowledge is not sufficient. It may not be necessary, but > understanding how material conditions evolve will certainly give activists a valuable > edge. > It already has given activists an edge -- my point was that nothing could be added to that edge.
It is fairly self-evident that capitalist progress is destroying the human species. That needs to be incorporated into all left programs and struggles. But the amount of time, energy, and space being devoted to specific aspects of it (like the coming oil crisis) is out of all proportion to any further gain that can be made. Everyone who can be influenced by the news has already been influenced. And the sad fact is that _most_ of those so influenced have _not_ moved on to anti-capitalist struggle. In other words, our time and energy needs to be spent in turning greens red, not in the hopeless task of bringing more people into the general movement through green agitation. The knowledge we had by 1980 of the ongoing damage to our living space by capitalist progress was sufficient to produce a sizeable green movement, and the added knowledge of the last 25 years has been of no added political impact. Or perhaps it even has had a negative impact, by adding weight to the lesser evil strategies that keep so many leftists tied to the tail of the DP. Carrol
