>>>Beyond that, however, we can't do much except bide time & hope
>>>the >tide will turn in our favor. Even the best of political
>>>organizers >can't conjure a mass movement out of a hat.
>>>
>>>Yoshie
>>
>>But how else will the tide turn in our favor if not through
>>organizing and education?
>>
>>Joseph
>
>Organizing & education alone won't do. In addition to them, we need
>favorable circumstances, like a really good economy + a losing war a
>la the 60s; a combination of anti-colonial struggles for national
>independence + socialist struggles against semi-feudal landlordism in
>China, Vietnam, etc.; a really bad economy & a threat of fascism a la
>the 30s; a losing war + the ruling-class crisis of confidence +
>uneven & combined development a la the Russian Revolution; etc.
>
>***** Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they
>please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but
>under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the
>past. <http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852-18b/ch01.htm>
>*****
>
>Yoshie
I don't dispute that propitious objective conditions are critically important, but history demonstrates that they can exist for remarkably long periods of time without leading to a mass movement and/or revolution. Organizing and consciousness raising are ultimately what turn the tide.
Cheers, Joseph _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.