Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > [clip]
> I don't dispute the point about all the capitalist elites' interest
> in and willingness to maintain "the last resort." What I question is
> their capacity. Are all crises amenable to such management? No
> possible crisis of capitalism that cannot be resolved by
> politico-economic interventions by the capitalist elites?
>
Perhaps, yes -- in the absence of a revolutionary mass movement. (Mao: If you don't hit it, it won't fall.) Lou and Mark J over on pen-l seem in a recent thread (which I have not followed very closely)to again be predicting catastrophe without specifying how that prediction of catastrophe can be politically embodied. I take that as a sign that both have essentially despaired of any mass revolutionary movement and are desperately hoping for capitalist catastrophe to pull rabbits out of the hat.
Economic crisis (even extraordinarily deep economic crisis) does not _initially_ trigger resistance: rather it individualizes the working class -- each for him/herself. That happened in 1974/75 for example, resulting in the Carter-Reagan administration of deregulation and aggressive foreign policy, both policies being essentially unopposed. Neither will ecological destruction power a mass movement that either can or will confront capitalism.
If the extravagances of the Bush Administration drive radicals back to the embrace of an illusory "progressive wing" of the DP there will be no resistance to the next offensive of capital either. The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the War Against Crime, the War Against Drugs, and the War Against Pedophilia/Serial Killers/etc [individual monstersof all stripes] are still the foundation of repression in the U.S., not the machinations of Ashworth & Co.
Carrol
> Yoshie