>Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> >
> > >the alternative to leftish symbolpolitik is getting involved in
> > >realpolitik, but i do not think that the idealistically oriented left is
> > >ready for such a drastic move.
> >
> > Just who are you talking about here? Who are these symbolic
> > politicians? Most of the left academics I've met are active,
> > sometimes very active. Who are these detached demons you (& Lou
> > Proyect) keep invoking? Or do you just have a need for them?
>
>I suspect that private definitions of both "realpolitik" and "idealistically
>oriented" are at work. Max would consider *all* left politics as
>woolgathering. And for over 200 years "letter writing" or
>petition-carrying have been central to revolutionary conceptions of
>"realpolitik" (if that is translated as simply "realistic politics" -- it
>usually has the flavor, however, of buddying up to power).
Well the folks I'm talking about are involved in union work on their own campuses, antisweatshop activism, anti-intervention movements - real gritty stuff, in other words. Eric Alterman, in a Wojtek-ish diatribe against postie politics, quoted Nelson Lichtenstein as saying that the strongest student support for the University of Virginia's Justice for Janitors campaign came from the theoryheads in English. When I was at the UVa English department 20 years ago, it was hard to tear folks away from their Dryden.
Doug