> Well, on the Dem side of the ledger, there's Flint, the 60s, and
> Seattle. On the other, there's the 20s, the 50s, the Nixon years, and
> the 80s. Empirically speaking, there's a case here.
>
> I don't think activists should wait until conditions are right (and
> Lenin would agree, no?). But there's a difference in how well activism
> is received, and whether it spreads beyond a hard core.
>
The problem I have with these kind of arguments is that I see leftists believing that activism and dissent depend on "great cycles of history" or whatever you want to call it. This brings to mind how one activist in Washington firmly believes that activism depends on the sunspot cycle. If one really looks at the history of activism and dissent in the US (and around the world), you will see only a superficial correlation with these external factors.
Let me point out that there was lots of activism happening during the Nixon years and during the 80s. In fact, most of the activism of the 1960s happened during the Nixon years (1969-1974). If you were thinking about the 1970s, there was a lot of activism happening then too: anti-nuclear, environmental, women's liberation, gay rights, native american activism, and so on.
Seattle happened for a variety of reasons, none of which had anything to do with the economic condictions at the time.
Chuck0