From: Carrol Cox
Doug Henwood wrote: I would include among those matters which "We simply do not know" the rise of mass popular movements (such as the civil-rights movement. ^^^^ CB: The problem with this is that there were civil rights activist in the decades before "the" civil rights movement took off in the fifties - W.E.B. Dubois, Paul Robeson, Benjamin Davis, Rosa Parks, The Civil Rights Congress, The National Negro Labor Council, even the organizing of the UAW, etc. . These activists had optimism of the will, and some sober assessment of the intellect that a civil rights movement that there was some probability that a movement would take off. So, it is not accurate to say nobody "knew" at all, that it was absolutely uncertain in advance. Maybe you didn't know, and a lot of other people didn't know. But some people had some knowledge that it would. They knew there was a possibility that it would happen, that's why they were organizing. Rosa Parks didn't just "happen" to sit up front one day. There is some information that she was a local Communist Party member, like the deacons who were the backbone of the Party in Alabama. The movement was not utterly unpredictable for some certain people, cp. The ANC slogan - "the struggle continues;victory is certain " - is interesting in this context. ^^ They are utterly unpredictable, which is why we must always act as though one is about to burst upon us in the next five years. It is because various left individuals & grouplets so act that, when such a mass movement arises, the experienced local cadre are available. This means that whole generations of leftists must 'waste' their entire lives preparing for occasions which are in Keynes's terminology "uncertain." ^^^^ CB; Actually , I agree with your conclusion that we must be always ready, prepared, like boy scouts. But, it should be with some sense that it is possible, it is not completely unknown. This is also for the morale of the cadre. Otherwise, we ask them to adopt a religious, faithful mentality. There is a possibility of change based on real evidence, not blind faith in revolution. ^^^^ Doug has called this fatalism, if I understand him, but it is no more fatalist than Keynes. Carrol ^^^^^ CB: It is a sort of blind faith. As materialists we should be pushing reasoned faith or reasoned optimism. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
