[lbo-talk] Legitimation Crisis? (washingtonpost.com: Don't Ask Me)

[snit snat]

At 08:56 AM 10/29/2004, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com, Fri Oct 29 00:49:09 PDT 2004:
>>And for that purpose, these polls couldn't be better for our side. If the 
>>polls were all saying Kerry would win, a lot of us wouldn't make that 
>>extra effort to get up early and take a bus to another state.  If they 
>>all said Kerry was losing and we believed them, many of us would skip the 
>>bus because we were dispirited -- because we would hate the idea of 
>>spending 12 hours in the cold when we were almost sure we were going to 
>>lose.  But these disputable polls are perfect.  We think we're going to 
>>win -- but we're scared.  And the more we talk about them, and the more 
>>we repeat and sift their disputability, the more we fire those feelings 
>>up until they merge into the conviction that we'll win -- but only by 
>>everyone making a supreme last effort, doing more than they ever have before.
>>
>>That's the reason we keep talking about them, Carrol.  It's partially an 
>>intellectual hobby for those of us who have taken statistics (which is 
>>another thing that probably bores you).  But it's real value is motivational.
>
>Why are Kerry supporters on LBO-talk so lacking in motivation as to 
>require round-the-clock discussion of disputable polls in a tight race 
>before they can make up their minds to show up?

he was specifically using a sports fan analogy, Yoshie. I don't think he 
was talking about whether people would go to the polls or not and he 
definitely wasn't talking about political action, revolutionary struggle, 
or anything like that.

For whatever reasons, not everyone here is going to engage in building a 
party, as you wish they would. No matter how many times you and others try 
to force on everyone your model of social change, people who've made this 
decision about how to spend what little free time they have are simply not 
going to listen any more than a dittohead is going to listen to Michael 
Moore or Eminem. Why you and Carrol waste everyone's time with these 
arguments, when it is a waste of time according to your own claims about 
how to engage in building a party (Revolutionary third thesis).

"We live under the Confederacy.
We're a podunk bunch of swaggering
pious hicks."

                --Bruce Sterling