>How can we be critical of the ways that people participate in their own
>oppression without blaming the victims ?
Charles,
This seems to me to be the easier part of the whole problem of making change, not a hard part. As you pose the question, the answer seems clear. You don't blame the victim for the existence of an evil social system--capitalism, not the people under its grip, creates poverty and degradation; people are poor *because* others are rich (the unequal labor market exchange). You do explain and criticize people's acquiesence to, and cooperation with, capital. This distinction between the creation of an evil, and actions that facilitate that system's continued existence, or even enhance its effects, seems clear to me.
Then you come to the hard parts: what to do and what do you want.
>
>Charles Brown
>
>>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 07/20/99 03:57PM >>>
>kelley wrote:
>
>>btw, why is it that polls are frequently attacked on this list for being
>>the tripe that they are, but when it comes to a poll that mirrors a view of
>>the world that's acceptable then a-okay and hurray to polls.
>
>So the American masses don't really revere the church, the army, and
>cops after all? Were they really disturbed that their military bombed
>the fuck out of some poor slobs in the Balkans, and just kept that
>concern under wraps? Ditto their great underappreciated concern that
>their government has starved and poisoned a million Iraqis? I'd love
>to believe that there were some great untapped reservoirs of
>solidarity and passion, but it's pretty damn hard to see any. Maybe
>I'm just in a bad mood this week.
>
>Doug
>
>
>