[lbo-talk] Why are the US-ers such assholes?

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Nov 1 11:38:57 PST 2005


Doug:
> Hatred is energizing, esp when you feel marginal & powerless. We need
> to make it work for us!

Did not "we" try that before and failed? The left mobilizing strategy was always that of "protest" - which ipso facto is based on hatred of real or perceived enemy, the capitalist, the boss, the imperialist, the white man, etc.

Quite frankly I think this is precisely the reason why the left is so weak today - the people who are cognitively predisposed to left and progressive ideas generally have little stomach for such hatred-based mobilization, they are more into hand holding, holistic views, wussy pacifism, multi-cultism, tolerance, do-goodism, and the like.

The fire-and-brimstone, nuk'em all folk, otoh, have little use of the wimpy hatemongering of the left, when they can get far juicier varieties from the right. I think that part of the population I beyond the reach for the left, since the left will never out-hate the right. A better strategy is to win back the wussy multi-culti hand holding holistic crowd by providing them an attractive ideological alternative to the market mantra.

In my earlier posting I suggested the concept of social economy popular in EU http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/entrepreneurship/coop/ as such an alternative, but there were no takers.

Wojtek



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