Daniel Davies wrote: > > not wanting to speak for Carrol, but to me his point looks more like a > practical one about the fact that there is a critical mass of hardnuts and > holdouts that can render a place uninhabitable no matter what the rest of > the population wants (compare the "vast majorities" that we were told were > in favour of peace throughout the Northern Irish troubles). This is a > military principle in Che Guevara's book and is one of the best bits in an > otherwise disappointing book. I doubt that the Viet Cong could have won an > election in Southern Vietnam, but there were just about enough of them to > make the US occupation unsustainable in the long term.
Yes. The Civil Rights movement _never_ had anywhere near a majority of the people _or_ of the Congress actually supporting it. Had Congress (House & Senate) voted on their convictions rather on the need to contain uproar we would still have Jim Crow and lynching in the south. And the CIO would never have come into existence by persuading people rather than by occupying work places by force. It was the action that persuaded people to listen to arguments. I suspect the union movement will revive when unions refuse bargaining elections and try other tactics and strategies -- which will have to include the illegal secondary boycott (which will have to be carried out by minority of workers in any given work place, not by majorities). The majorities will come but only if that "critical mass" minority acts correctly. Our task is to look for opportunities to build that critical mass. The flight to the DP in 2004 apparently ruined our chances of building a critical mass in the anti-war movement. The 1972 election tells you how electorally popular civil rights and anti-war were. One simply cannot win by lusting for a majority (or for immediate effect). If you try to convince a majority of anythi Carrol
