On 7/22/2011 7:43 PM, Gen Coyle wrote: Yes.
That's why I suggest that pen-l disucss cutting working hours as an entrance into open conflict toward an understanding about what'sgoing on./ But Devine and Proyect and Henwood forbid such a discussion. Gen Coyle Cox: Pen-L can only discuss ideas in abstraction from practice. That is no one’s fault. It derives from (a) the nature of an e-mail list and (b) the realities of current political practice. (Note: When I speak of politics or political practice, I _never_ mean the activity of the Republican or Democratic Parties. SNCC was political. SCLC was political. The CIO in its early days was political but has not been since 1938 or so. NPA* is political (not Marxist, nor revolutionary, not ultimately a very satisfactory form of political practice, but perhaps of extreme political importance at the present time.). LUC** is part of what is probably the core political activity in the U.S. at this time. LUC was organized locally by Sonny Garcia. (He’s worth googling.) And while Move-On gives me the creeps, SOME local chapters, SOME (but not most) of the time, are political. A group that is meeting now in our house (its usual place not being available), a group that _really_ gives me the creeps and would drive Doug up the wall, something to do with sustainability and (I think) localism. Jan isn’t very happy about it, but she is right to attend it: It is people taling to each other about what to do. It ahs some political people in it: that makes it part of the embryonic left in the U.s. If a left gets born, we can hope localism won’t be too much a part of it – but those people are responding to some very real conditons in the world today, so as muchas they irritate, they are more political, more important, then the Congress of the United States. *National People’s Action http://www.npa-us.org/ ***Latinos Unidos para cambio http://www.facebook.com/pages/Latinos-Unidos-para-Cambio-LUC-de-IPA/109026482478982?sk=notes What I’m getting at might be defined as “where WORKABLE ideas come from.” By workable I mean ideas that create a context of people in action within which it becomes possible to develop better ideas than they usually start from. The Eleventh Thesis is All Powerful: You can only understand the world, you can only understand what the world needs, by taking part in collective action to change the world. And almost always that collective action BEGINS with various campaigns and struggles which do NOT correspond to what thinkers think is needed at a give time. I agree with Gene on hours – but that idea can’t come alive just by being discussed. It can come alive only within some political activity such as I have been discussing and the conversation generated within that activity. And that is where experts need to locate themselves – but they can’t start out by saying, This is the right goal. They start out by participating in the activity that has been generated by whatever goal . . . . Then it gets complicated. Carrol -----Original Message----- michael perelman< Jul 22, 2011 5:37 PM Re: My blog rant Good piece. I am skeptical that hard time will be enough to get people organized. I think it will require people offering a framework to understand what is going on; otherwise too many will be susceptible to tea party kool aide. -- Michael Perelman Economics _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
