>It also helps that I'm an atheist when it becomes to belief in Calvinist
>historical determinism. I know that this list is filled with leftists who
>can spend all day explaining why the historical conditions aren't right
>for this or that thing to happen. The historical conditions weren't right
>for Seattle to happen, yet it did happen!
that statement is just so wrong, it's not funny. Seattle happened for all kinds of reasons, including historical circumstances. A good, booming economy, for one thing. The labor market was so tight, you could get a job if all you did was breath.
the internet was extremely important to organizing that event. THAT is a large scale institution and it is likely that, without internet comm, nothing whatsoever would have happened.
the choice of seattle to begin with, with its police force that was ill-prepared for what happened.
also, if I'm not mistaken, the mini baby boomlet occured 1980-1985. more youth, more people with time on their hands, a rebellious sensibility, and the condition of not yet being attached to a career or life trajectory.
Combine them with older people, such as you and angela, who were influenced by the 60s, but frustrated by lack of opportunities to carry on the struggle during the 80s. they were there, but we were also fighting the go-go 80s and the early rise of conservativism.
Seattle and the northwest in general had been suffering economic downsizing for quite some time, the cultural phenom of the grunge movement, etc. etc. these fostered a climate of resistance.
understanding the larger historical circumstances within which movements emerge isn't being defeatist. it's taking care to examine the complexity of history. it doesn't mean that you have to wait around for the conditions to be ripe. that's certainly not the message you take home when you read marx, for instance. indeed, part of my reasoning in my rant had to do with marx's argument that something like the Paris Commune happened because of unique historical circumstances _and_ because they nourished a civil and social infrastructure for a kind of anarchist existence where they produced things for themselves and created an infrastructure to fosture substantive democratic participation. marx laments the failure of the Paris Commune, arguing that, for all they did, it wasn't quite enough. But, at least, what made it successful was the attempt to foster alternative social institutions -- for it were these institutions, he said, that would be what ultimately brought down the system.
it's not an either/or. It's a complex interplay between large scale social change and technological developments (macro), intermediate (meso level) changes in institutions and practices, and small-scale, individual level actions. People make history, but not just in any way they please. Conversely, people live in and through institutions.
oh. whatever. it's like banging your head against a concrete wall some days. and i hate wall head. you spend time, making a fairly careful argument, and yoshie comes along and tells you that everything you've written is about giv ing up and you tell johanning he wants to see mondale president. i never once said, give up, don't protest. i said, here's another approach and i think it's important. i never once said people _shouldn't_ protest. i explained why people felt they couldn't, not because they're afraid or cowed but because they have real constraints on their time.
recognizing that isn't conceding defeat, it means creating ways to overcome those problems. like, instead of berating people, thinking of ways to mitigate the problem. e.g., when we protested at Landis Plastics, we created a free daycare center so the women didn't have to pay for childcare in order to protest.
kelley
"We live under the Confederacy. We're a podunk bunch of swaggering pious hicks."
--Bruce Sterling