>On Behalf Of Anderson Robert L
>
> Across the board workers and citizens and environmentalists are trying to
> break out of the agenda set by the powers of the status quo. The
> turbulent elections and the weather in Seattle and the anti-sweatshop
> movement, for instance, seem to me to be like the little storms of the
> early 60s...hopefully.
Let's hope not. The 60s gave way to the neoliberal corporate assault of the 1970s. The combination of labor union conservatism and New Left assaults on anyone even marginally to their right opened the way for the truly successful movement of the 1960s, the New Right, which moved from its takeover of the Goldwater campaign in 1964 to electing Ronald Reagan governor and then onto the Presidency.
By the time 60s activists "success" was done, we saw the beginnings of the destruction of wages (which began their decline), the destruction of unions, deregulation, and the whole corporate assault of the New Right.
Please, please, spare us from 60s nostalgia. The Civil Rights movement was admirable and the embryo of the environmental and women's rights movements spun off from the New Left, but the general core of New Left activism can only be considered an abysmal failure. And a lot of that came from their general scorn for working class power in favor of "do your own thing" self-expression and self-indulgence.
The very fact that labor unions, under assault from corporate America at every turn can be considered "the establishment" in any sense is ridiculous. I am amazed that writers like Cockburn, whose salaries are paid by rightwing capitalists like the NEW YORK PRESS, can be so hypocritical to assume any kind of "less establishment than thou" stance. Union leaders can be considered dumb or antidemocratic, but at least their salaries are not paid by the corporate establishment, unlike most writers and academics who criticize them.
-- Nathan Newman