> Mark Jones wrote:
>
> >I have to say and declare that attempts to forge a red/green synthesis
> >have everywhere failed: from CNS to the new German government, to Earth
> >First! to Louis Proyect and my own humble efforts. I am curious why,
> >since I still see no alternative to effect the salvation of humankind
> >and life on earth generally.
>
> Mark, have they failed any worse than left projects of this anti-left time?
> The red-green cross is still a pretty young hybrid, and even modern green
> thought is only a few decades old. As storms get more intense and the
> climate gets more bizarre, thinking will evolve.
>
> One problem, though, is that socialism could once plausibly promise "more"
> to impoverished workers; the argument was that it could do production
> better than the capitalists. The green fantasy is of a different kind of
> abundance, a qualitatively different kind of production and consumption,
> which goes against the grain of a commodity fetishized culture. Greens have
> a problem in selling what lots of people hear as "less."
Superbly put.
Back in 1990, I was part of a decidedly left green tendency in a local Green (pre-party) chapter that put on a lot of public forums. Thanks to the big hoopla around Earth Day 1990, we got floods of people sometimes who were disturbed to the point of hysteria -- and then became even more hysterical with us, because, of course, "everyone knew" that socialism was a failure, and how could we be wasting people's time like that, when the Earth (or was it sky?) was about to fall. It was so intense, I can still remember one young couple in particular who got up and left in disgust before anyone had a chance to answer them.
Just because we don't have the answers all figured out doesn't mean we should walk out in disgust, too.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"