Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>
> I don't think that you can artificially "promote" any revolution when
> only a handful diehard revolutionaries want it. Most Americans today
> aren't revolutionaries. Most of them aren't even politically active
> at any spectrum of the left yet. You have to start where you are at,
> even if you wish that conditions were more auspicious.
>
I think both Yoshie and I have usually put our emphasis on building mass movements of the left rather than on any such silly thing as "promoting revolution." But mass movements can no more be "promoted" than can revolutions -- a fact which I tried to get at with my reference to "punctuated equilibrium." During a period of equilibrium all we can do is is try this, try that, hold on to cadre, try to meet more people.
As to revolution, for my own part, I've declared innumerable times on this list that my grounds for it are pessimistic. I'm not sure it's possible. I don't know if the results will be good. But I do know that we only have a half century or so left to change things radically -- and the necessary change won't come from any other source. Probably it won't come at all. I won't be around however, so that's not my concern.
I avoid predictions, but I will make one: It won't make a fucking bit of difference in November 2004 what Doug Henwood (or Carrol or Yoshie) do between now and then. Let's assume it is very important to defeat Bush. But it still is silly for the few leftists around to waste their time on the election, because they won't have any effect on the election, but they might make a difference in maintaining the framework for mass action. You are dooming yourself to futility if you give energy to the election.
Carrol