Doug Henwood wrote:
> "Sober reformists are incapable of understanding that they need
> immoderates to help make their case; without crazies to which they
> can appear like moderate alternatives, no one would ever listen to
> them."
That's a fair reformulation of David Brower's famous line that it was good to have Ed Abbey and the Earth First!ers around because it made him (the Archdruid) look like a moderate.
> On that spectrum, I feel a lot closer to the crazies than the sober
> reformists. I don't believe the WTO or the IMF can be "fixed";
> they're institutions of a global bourgeoisie from top to bottom.
> Where did I ever suggest otherwise?
"Portions of U.S. organized labor are showing the most internationalism they have in my memory, which, despite my advancing age, is still a fairly limited range. These signs should be encouraged, and not disparaged. Hoffa's Mexico- and China-bashing deserve nothing but scorn, but for a movement that was long a junior partner in the Cold War, this is progress."
That sounds like a caviling endorsement of baby-step incrementalism to me. But it sure strikes me as odd to hear people like the RadioNation Squad endorse, for example, Gerald McEntee's crystal-meth performance at the Labor Parade, where the guy quoted Carl Oglesby at the same time he has endorsed for president a man that is far to the right of Humbert Humphrey or even LBJ. Where I come from they call that a Scam Artist. Herman Melville wrote all about it in what I think is his best book: the Confidence Man.