I think it helps to try to imagine how good things could happen. Plausible scenarios.
Intensifying the contradictions, arousing the working class against the capitalist class, I don't think presidents do that. You can't criticize a bus for not taking flight. In the U.S., marginal voices raise consciousness and elaborate new paradigms. These can have some influence, get absorbed and somewhat diluted, sometimes leave us better off. The most likely analog is the 30s. Mike Kazin has described the populism of the labor movement. Maybe he's wrong or exaggerates a bit to illuminate his thesis. So the radicalism of the 30s can be exaggerated. We know the CP took a turn after the 3rd period to something a bunch of people here would criticize as accommodationist, or old paradigm. An optimistic scenario is that Obama constructs a social-democratic consensus and does considerable good. There is still a lot of time for that too happen, notwithstanding any missteps to date. FDR had a pretty rotten start too. As for "the 60s," I was in SDS and went to big demos. Most of the people there were on a protest picnic. They didn't read Marx. I had barely read Marx myself. The radical edges of the time -- SDS and SNCC -- motivated a basically liberal mass activism, partly with salient criticism of the system, and partly by the power of negative example. I think what everybody here is doing is fine, and maybe it will turn out fine, or maybe things will turn to shit. If you think you know which, you're wrong. On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 12:15 PM, Doug Henwood <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Feb 13, 2009, at 12:10 PM, Max Sawicky wrote: > >> It's a means to an end. If it works and the end is good, no problem. > > Means to what end? To paper over real conflict? What good does that do? > > Doug > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
