[lbo-talk] Kansas as angst indicator

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Mon Jun 28 11:04:08 PDT 2004


Justin:
> My suggestion would be not that the left is mot
> arguing material economic interests rather than social
> distractions, but rather that for various reasons it
> lacks, has lost, or has had destroyed, the
> institutions that would sustain an alterntive vision.
> In other words, it's not that we are running the wromg
> line, but that we have no organizations to foster a
> different visiion.

Which begs the question "Why do not we have organizations to foster a different visions in these areas?"

Certainly not for the lack of trying. What is more, there is a plenty of right wing, racist and nativist organizations that attract these folks in droves. I think that it is not the lack of vision or organization but the fact our vision has very little appeal to these folks, hence the lack of organization. And it has very little appeal because it is fundamentally incapable of providing what these folks desperately look for - a scapegoat or a punching boy.

Most people do not seek a life without economic burdens and exploitation because they do not even know that such life exists let alone having an idea what it would look like. What these people need is to affirm their own social status in the only way they know: by blaming their failures on others and finding comfort that there other below them.

Any leftist or progressive vision is antithetical to these two ways, while it is readily supplied by right wing rabble rousers. Ergo, a left of progressive vision will never be voluntarily adopted by rednecks, NASCAR dads, ditto-heads, Bush supporters and the like (which HL Mencken aptly dubbed "booboisie"). They are the natural supporters of what I call the "gutter conservatism."

Wojtek



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