Chris : We shall see. I share your feelings of hopefulness. I also am wary. Have been down a similar road before, and probably you have, too. Like the song says, let's hope "we don't get fooled again." Hence it makes sense to be guarded about this. The young have no memories of being fooled the first time --unless disillusionment with Obama runs deep. Maybe it does. About this, I simply don't know. In a way BHO has the role of LBJ back in 1967 - 68. The youth vote was pro-Democratic but anti-establishment and anti-LBJ. Could be we are seeing history repeat itself. As Hegel said, however, the first time it does, the character of the repeat is tragedy. If there is a second repeat the effect is farce. Maybe best not to take Hegel literally about this, but as a caution. The hard Right, once again, is tone deaf. Absence of critical-mindedness. They complain about knee-jerk liberals but we are witnessing knee-jerk conservatives in action. Pathetic, is what it is. This could be a great opportunity. But the opportunity I'd most like to see is probably the most unlikely, a Tea Party - OWS fusion and a new populist movement. Still, this cannot be ruled out, at least not yet. Main thing is whether OWS has staying power. With the unemployment number still at better than 9 % and not moving at all, there well could be staying power. If there is a double dip, the movement would get stronger. And the Right, for sure, would get more shrill and paranoid. Not all of the Right, certainly not conservative pragmatists, but the establishment Right. They cannot get it out of their heads that, since they are rewarded by the system-- out of all proportion to their actual worth-- that anything is actually wrong. For them blatant economic injustice is "fair" and good. What ugly conceit. Which is reinforced by a really warped interpretation of Adam Smith which says that morality doesn't count even when Smith himself said that a morals-free capitalism is death. All of this said, there are dangers to look out for. There are X number of wild cards in the deck. But there might also be fortuitous developments which could work to the advantage of RC. A movement this large surely will factionalize at some point. The right kind of faction and we could find ourselves very relevant to the movement. Billy ====================================================== 10/17/2011 8:22:55 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
“Today’s Wall Street protests represent the left’s _decoupling from Obama_ (http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=AmrKe6r1jlX1ApKBBBgvPJC1qHQA;_ylu=X3oDMTFrM2g5cm4zBG1pdANBcnRpY2xlIEJvZHkEcG9zAzExBHNlYwNNZWRpYUFydGljbGVCb2R5QXNzZW1ibH k-;_ylg=X3oDMTJqaXFnc3ExBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDYjcxZWRkYzUtY2Vl Ny0zYzE0LThiMzEtMmQ1MTBiOTViMjQ4BHBzdGNhdAMEcHQDc3RvcnlwYWdl;_ylv=0/SIG=145r qcnbb/EXP=1320073775/**http:/www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/10/occup y-wall-street-protests-spell-trouble-for-obama-in-2012.html) and the Democratic Party, something that the global nature of the movement will only reinforce. That doesn’t mean the movement has a clear critique of unregulated capitalism yet, let alone a concrete agenda for reform, but it means that the left finally is forcing those questions onto the public agenda. By confronting Wall Street, it is creating the populist energy that Obama himself has not.” _http://news.yahoo.com/occupy-protests-seismic-effect-062600703.html_ (http://news.yahoo.com/occupy-protests-seismic-effect-062600703.html) I still don’t know what to make of the “occupy” movement, but I thought this was interesting. “This past weekend, in 900 cities across the world, tens of thousands _demonstrated against unregulated capitalism_ (http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=AvAaMYSijq.3yO4iij0R.MG1qHQA;_ylu=X3oDMTFqMDgxZXM0BG1pdANBcnRpY2xlIEJvZHkEcG9zA zEEc2VjA01lZGlhQXJ0aWNsZUJvZHlBc3NlbWJseQ--;_ylg=X3oDMTJqaXFnc3ExBGludGwDdXM EbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDYjcxZWRkYzUtY2VlNy0zYzE0LThiMzEtMmQ1MTBiOTViMjQ4BHB zdGNhdAMEcHQDc3RvcnlwYWdl;_ylv=0/SIG=1490inbhd/EXP=1320073775/**http:/www.th edailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/15/rome-protests-black-bloc-militants-turn- occupy-protests-violent.html) .” The link in the sentence above leads to an article about anarchists taking over the protests in Rome. Whatever the occupy movement represents, it is tapping into something that activates a grass roots constituency. Like the tea party in its roots days, this is a movement that cannot be ignored. Chris -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_ (http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism) Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/) -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
