>>Oh, I certainly would never blame Moore (as for Hollywood, that's hardly
>>a target with enough stature to bother roughing up). And I fully agree
>>with those who argue that the Left needs to be more vigorous in stating
>>its moral positions. One of the big mistakes of left radicals for a long
>>time, IMHO, has been the quasi-Marxist (faux-Marxist) idea that political
>>agitation has to eschew all moral language, and just talk about "material
>>issues." Every progressive movement that has accomplished anything in
>>U.S. history has been based on moral convictions, from anti-slavery
>>agitation to early 20th century progressivism and populism, the union
>>movement, the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, etc., etc.
So moral conviction is it? Just find a "better moral" than the Repugs and the right-wing Christians, and they'll see the error of their ways, repent, and follow merrily along behind you?
I'll hardly argue that morality wasn't a factor deployed in those progressive movements (given that there were so many different people and groups involved there, I'd imagine you wouldn't have been able to spit and not hit some reasoning based on morals), but there were other elements that, I'd suspect, were far more "concretely" based and so more effective than moral conviction.
>>[end]
>Furthermore, an economic self-interest pitch can conform to right-wing
>caricatures of the left as a pack of crass materialists. Chip's slide
>show reminded me of this pitfall.
>
>I don't know how to do this. However, I am convinced that we have to do
>better at getting inside their heads.
>
>-- Shane
And the right-wingers aren't embedded in materiality themselves? I've a hunch it's only the white, middle-class Christer fanatics who prattle on about "God will provide".
And they're already made up their minds about "the Left"; why try to talk their language _and_ hand them a wedge to make it even easier for them to reject anything progressive again? Better to see where they're at in the power/class structure, and try to get a guess as to where they're going.
Why not get a look at them through looking at their class position, among other things? Right now they're ascendant, being taken to the heights alongwith the bourgeois and tossed a few easy sops along the way (like gay marriage). What happens when the materiality that backs their worldview turns round and bites them? Great time to move then.