Chuck Grimes wrote:
>
> ``...Part of the problem may lie in the bad habit that many people
> have in using "we" when they mean US political and financial
> elites. To say that `we' are thwarting democracy abroad, impoverishing
> other populations, or bombing innocent people, when really referring
> to the actions of the White House, the CIA, the Pentagon, the IMF and
> the WTO, is to assume a community of interest between the general
> public and those who regularly prey upon it,...'' [The Terrorism Trap,
> Parenti, fwd Yoshie]
>
> ---------
>
> This is all well and good as far as it goes. But after a certain point
> `we' do begin to share culpability for the policies carried out upon us
> and projected onto the rest of the world.
>
Chuck, one great problem of moralism is that it has its head screwed on backwards: it faces the past (and the present, of course, is past by the time anything we think now can make a difference). What in the fuck difference does it make whether the souls of 200 million working-class americans are deep-dyed in sin or radiant with intellect and beauty.
How can we change the world. What can we do in the next few weeks that potentially will make a difference in what we can do 6 months from now.
Bellyaching about the sins of the american working class or about the humorlessness of a "Left" that doesn't exist are equally barriers to thinking about what (possibly) needs to be done and (more importantly at the present time) how we can mobilize at least an embryonic force to do whatever it is that needs to be done.
Carrol