The question to me is not so much about blame or responsibility--anyone who's not currently locked up for anti-war activity is responsible--the question is what's changing, who's changing and why.
In any long strike, or even after 9-11, people do reexamine what's important.
Why are these different from a personal crisis? Maybe when the experience is collective it sticks better cause it's not just you changing while everyone else is still judging you for the clothes your kids wear or the car you drive. I think there has to be something fairly intense with a continual pull the other direction, because the push to spend every penny you have--and then borrow more--is relentless. Some of the anti-tobacco campaigns have done well, focusing on the fact that corporations are playing us for suckers (rather than, 'you smoke, you die' which is apparently the least effective form of anti-smoking advertising--and that favored by the tobacco companies themselves.)
Meanwhile, the holier-than-thou grow-your-own hemp furniture crowd is saying, "The more you know, the less you need" and making everyone else nauseous. (Since I don't think they mean that if you know the law and everyone in your building you can more effectively force the effing landlord to turn on the heat.)
>David:
>Individual preferences mean little in a society based on
>accumulation, and in a capitalist society there is no reason a working-class
>person shouldn't be able to own an SUV just as a member of the bourgeoisie.
It's like an arms race. My sister in law was in a car crash and the next vehicle she bought was this ENORMOUS truck, just huge. You climb a ladder to get in. No, they couldn't afford it. They were already up to their eyebrows in debt. What do you say in the face of fear, defiance, pride? I was speechless.
>If folks decide to boycott SUVs, there are a million and one ways the
>capitalists can regroup, recentering their investments elsewhere. Remember
>that capitalists control the media, too.
To which, Pete Seeger:
"But publishers have worries for publishers must go to working folks for readers and to business for their dough"
("Newspapermen are such interesting people")
Contradictions, contradictions everywhere! Makes my head hurt. Can't there just be rules for this stuff? : )
Jenny Brown