O Happy Day

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Wed Dec 13 17:53:44 PST 2000


Dennis R Redmond wrote:


> [snip]
> On the contrary, this whole election has been one gigantic millenium-fest.
> Not one single apparatus of our one-party state has escaped severe damage
> or delegitimation.

This is an empiricist understanding of political reality: it assumes that the facts Dennis describes explain themselves. They don't. They delegitimate anything only for those who already know that those institutions lack legitimacy.

I saw just parts of a rather *Elizabeth*, a rather bad movie, on TV. It had one good line. A character who has committed treason in service to the Catholic faith says "The people will remember me." Elizabeth's minister replies, "No. The people will forget."

Trust The People, Yes. But trust them to respond to the experience of struggle in process, not to sit passively in their homes and understand. The people will forget.

Carrol



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