>Neither the AFL -CIO nor the relatively privileged North American
>industrial working class is likely, in the foreseeable future, to
>launch a
>struggle to establish the practice and ideas necessary for democratic
>or
>egalitarian social change. This does not mean the workers never will.
>It
>does mean they won't soon.
"Relatively priveleged" working class? Relative to what? The virtual slaves toiling away in Nike's Indonesian plants or Mexican maquiladora workers? I guess by those standards the American working class could be called "privileged," but life ain't exactly a picnic here in the ol' U.S. of A.
>The struggles for justice in the near future will lilely come from
>youth,
>in schools and out
I doubt it. What passes for "activism" among young people are concerts in which wealthy pop musicians get together for this or that cause of the month (such as the recent Tibet "rally"). As the brilliant Tom Frank has pointed out, despite programs such as Union Summer (which I will be attending in a week's time), most young people just aren't interested in issues of economic inequality. They are more likely to involve themselves in campaigns for "human rights" and groups such as Amnesty International, without putting things in a broader economic context. In the worldview of today's youth "activists," human rights violations and environmental catastrophes are just tragic, isolated incidents totally unconnected to the larger capitalist social structure.
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