> Turbulo:
>> The resistance of the ruling classes is fierce. Too many sixties
>> radicals
> were possessed of the notion that they could posture and party their
> way into a classless society, and were completely unprepared when
> capitalism gave began to show its fangs.<
>
> WS:
> I think you are mistaking our own weakness for our enemy's strength.
> What you call "the ruling class" is by no means united - it is
> amorphous, internally divided, and willing to compromise because deal
> making is its modus operandi and its raison d'etre. The fact that it
> gets pretty much what it wants is owed not as much to its own power,
> albeit this power is non trivial, but the incredible weakness of its
> class enemies.
>
> The weakness of the Left (which I understand broadly as
> anti-authoritarians and anti-capitalists) is grounded in three
> factors:
> 1. Internal divisions that are far greater than those of the ruling
> class;
> 2. The inability to offer anything tangible to wide segments of the
> population that would even remotely come to the same order of
> magnitude what the ruling classes deliver (not just material goods,
> but also a sense of stability and order);
> 3. The lack of cultural authority or "traction" i.e. a distinct and
> clearly recognizable weltanachauung that just "makes sense" without
> the need of complicated explanations, corroborations and caveats.
>
> When the left can offer something tangible and attains such a clearly
> recognizable common sense weltanschauung - it winds handily cf. the
> civil rights movement, or the Russian revolution. But when it does
> not, it simply loses its attractiveness, and the ruling classes doe
> not have to do much to attract popular support, let alone use
> oppression and coercion to maintain their power.
>
> The apparent strength of the right lies in the incredible weakness of
> the left. The hackneyed adage TINA is true when taken in its
> descriptive rather than normative sense. There is no alternative -
> not because it is no longer possible to formulate one, but because
> noone has thus far proposed one that can be taken seriously.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
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In the 60s, I was loosely affiliated with YIP. I watched as the Trots/Maoists/PL/PD/ RYM2/Rym1/TS around N.Y. infought and theorized their way to the point of absolute organizing uselessness... As far as I'm concerned, *it's still that way*. Once in a while someone starts a thread that contains the word "Vanguard"... ... and my eyes glazed over...
Hate? Boredom? You choose.
...and we danced on their theoretical graves... I still do.
My question is: Exactly what *did* "leftists" & "marxist" do during the war, daddy?
I saw students, I saw politicized hippies, I saw workers... I saw average people that finally and absolutely got fed up... for myriad reasons. But no one I could really Identify as the aforementiond things called left/marxist etc.... Herbert Marcuse... He drove some. Abbie Hoffman learned his lessons well when he studied under him @ Brandeis.... He learned that you have to get off your alienating ass once in a while and actually do something that people can *simply* understand... relate to.
I was out on the streets again today, met 2 Vets, 1 'Nam, 1 PGW 1, and a woman whose son has just gone back for his 4th tour in Iraq after having his Femoral artery repaired after an IED attack... He's out for blood now, and because of that, he's probably gonna get stupid sloppy and get himself killed
What's all the theory going to do for a single one of them? These are current event issues, and unless they are dealt with, you have no base of support to theorize for.
I think I just re-iterated what Woj was saying in his three points... But ruder.
Leigh
"The roots of repression are, and remain real roots; consequently, their eradication remains a real and rational job. What is to be abolished is not the reality principal, not everything, but such particular things as business, politics, exploitation, poverty."
To forget this is to mystify the possibilities of liberation." --Herbert Marcuse