> methinks that the ability of the explicitly socialist and communist
> left f(r)actions that exercise preponderent weight in the anti-war
> coalitions along w/ a smattering of Xtian Left pacifists and Left
> Democrats, to mobilize that anti-war majority is hindered by the
> inability of your standard left networks and individuals to
> reach/touch base with those not already part of one's social
> set/periphery.
[snip]
> And, I don't think, (though I do try to slyly introduce via populist
> Americanisms) that using the usual grad student hyper-abstractions you
> use, so bloodless and souless, gets to the core why Capitalism and
> Empire Is Such a Death Dealing Machine.
If memory serves, this point about intellectualist lefties not getting outside their own social set has come up on this list before, but it bears repeating.
Somewhere, somehow, in the history of the U.S. Left, we just ceased to be able to communicate with the "historical subject" we were supposed to be vanguarding, the working class. The fact that we are almost completely powerless to change the course of events at this point is no mystery at all to me.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A gentleman haranguing on the perfection of our law, and that it was equally open to the poor and the rich, was answered by another, 'So is the London Tavern.' -- "Tom Paine's Jests..." (1794); also attr. to John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) by Hazlitt