"The bourgeoisie will not permit the Democratic Party or the AFL-CIO and its hierarchy to be destroyed, because doing so would destroy the organizations that exist to divert and destroy mass movements when they arise (actually, they might be dumb enough to destoy the AFL-CIO)."
Like Yoshie's statement that the ruling class [or was it the GOP?] would never *really* want aborton outlawed because it's too beneficial for them to keep playing it up every election season to energize their base, this "it's too useful for the ruling class to let liberal program/insitution X survive" stuff never convinces me. The ruling class can shoot itself int he foot as good as anyone else can. They can be over reaching and over zealous. Was it useful for Hitler to invade Russia? No, but he did it anyway.
When you said they might be dumb enough to destroy the AFL-CIO--hardly an ideal radical left organization but hell it's *something* to defend in light of right wing attacks--that's exactly it. They make mistakes, too. And in any event the absence of the Democratic Party and/or the AFL-CIO does not guarantee a "revolution" would happen, either [not that youw ere claiming this]. People can go centuries living in the most miserably foul conditions. It's happened before--slave societies existed thousands of years, there was the Dark Ages, etc. People have an enormous capacity for suffering and hardship, unfortunately.
B.
===== "I'm not too worried by hegemony / I know the cadre will look after me" - Magazine, "Model Worker," 1978