I still think it's better to be lied to than beaten about the head--progress in the type of force used.
Who ever followed their 'self-identified material interest' to a revolutionary end? Radical self-interest develops in reference to others, socially. I would think if we followed self-identified material interest (immediate, narrow, direct) we would shut up and do what we're told, to avoid short-term pain.
>And hence we return to the ever
>illusive self-sufficiency of fraudulant or manufactured illusions of
>interest.
We needn't (though I suppose we sometimes do) depend on illusion to get at self-interest. I think you're defining self-interest too narrowly, and from that you're getting close to saying there isn't any self-interest any more. (If there is one then why would we--radicals, say--need to rely on illusion?) If by 'material' we mean food-shelter-clothing there are a whole lot of unaccountable movements of self-interest, such as feminism. And the last period which could be called revolutionary in the U.S. (and I'd argue a cultural revolution did occur) coincided with a peak in wages, with people's 'most dire material needs' being met as they haven't been before or since. I won't argue one caused the other, but one certainly didn't block the other.
Jenny Brown back after a busy spell