[lbo-talk] A 'Progressive Conference'

Jon Johanning jjohanning at igc.org
Tue May 25 07:32:58 PDT 2004


On Monday, May 24, 2004, at 04:45 PM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:


> The Left, on the other hand, would never be capable of accomplish the
> same mobilization level simply because the booboisie, the "masses"
> prefer right-wing bigotry to anything that the Left holds dear. That
> the tenor of the US politics is quite conservative and that anything
> smacking of the Left ideas is dead on arrival is due not to shrewd
> maneuvers of a few conservative politicians, or lack of organizational
> skills on the Left, but to bigotry and conservatism of a large share of
> the US population.

Well, the Left had damned well better figure out how to accomplish the same mobilization, or it will be forever condemned to a minority status. The tenor of US politics has to be shifted away from the conservative status quo. Actually, it seems to me that this status quo is relatively recent -- in the 30s and 40s, the situation was very different. But then there were leftists who knew how to talk to Americans in a way they understood and accepted. That voice has to be recovered.

Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ Belinda: Ay, but you know we must return good for evil. Lady Brute: That may be a mistake in the translation.

-- Sir John Vanbrugh: The Provok’d Wife (1697), I.i.



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