Jim Devine wrote: > > > For practical purposes of contributing to the growth of a mass > left movement it is fairly harmless to predict disasters that don't > occur. < > > there's no down-side to "crying wolf"? it has no impact on one's credibility?
One can't be unreasonably unreasonable; there are limits. But actually, one can make quite a few bad predictions without real loss of crdibility. And people will certainly remember the correct ones! This is after all the way real nuts and scalawags maintain credibility (e.g. astrologers), whowe 'predictions' are nutty on the face of it. The point is to be in a position, as things are falling apart, to be able to draw people into the mass activity which you and I both call for. What I still consider the worst mistake of my political career had already been made before I quite realized I was in a mass movement (and certainly before I became a marxist): I needed to write several letters to the local paper in 1965 proclaiming that the U.S. would suffer a horrible defeat in Vietnam. I already sort of believed that but didn't want to stick my neck out. Carrol _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
