> From: John Halle <john.halle at SNET.Net>
>
> Rather, I was attempting, yet again, to raise the question of what it
> would take for the sector of the leftist intelligentsia represented
> on LBO to move from its exclusively literary engagement with "the
> movement" to making a tangible contribution which actually advances
> radical politics in admittedly limited but concrete ways.
Wrong on both counts -- the political and the cultural.
(1) I'm busting my ass out in Los Angeles working on a SEIU union drive, but I don't spend hours proclaiming my moral sanctity about it, because the real heros are the nurses and med techs standing up, in spite of incredible management pressure, in one of the most viciously anti-union countries on the planet, and fighting for better conditions, decent wages, and decent healthcare for all. You'd be amazed at the trouble-making being stirred up by LBOsters; ask us off-list and see.
(2) Culture is the central field of ideological struggle in the epoch of consumer capitalism. A Left which doesn't have a cultural agenda, which doesn't understand why "Max Payne" rocks and Eminem rolls, which can't comprehend the joys of Japanese anime and the wonder of Iranian cinema, will never be able to mobilize the millions and billions of people out there who are being screwed by this most global of all capitalisms.
-- Dennis