Yes, they are terrified, but is their fear realistic or is it paranoid, far disproportionate to any real power of a counter-example to inspire social change elsewhere? I believe it is often the latter, for social change in the end has to be generated from inside, whatever inspiration you might get from outside.
> The U.S. will fight to stay there until or
> unless it is forced out by defeats abroad and at home.
That is very much likely to be the case.
> No ruling class has ever been 100% unified. In any grouping there is
> almost always, as though by some statistical law, around 5% who grumble
> or resist. Those in the ruling class now who disagree will confine
> themselves to polite articles in Foreign Affairs or the op-ed pages of
> the major papers.
Those who write op-eds and the like aren't necessarily members of the ruling class, though they can't be.
In my view, the power elite (those who directly run governments and other institutions) and the ruling class (those who own the means of production) are not necessarily the same people, though there is an overlap between them.
As capitalism has transnationalized investment and production, there has developed a greater gap between the power elite and the ruling class. The power elite who run the US government are obviously American; the ruling class are multinational.
On 8/7/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Aug 7, 2006, at 9:46 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > Their thinking is divorced from reality.
> >
> > So is the pie-in-the-sky fantasy of most US leftists
>
> E.g., those who embrace Ahmadinejad.
The Iranians who voted for Ahmadinejad, imho, made a realistic choice.
If you want the Iranians to vote differently in the next presidential election, you might tell them who would be the better choice in your opinion and explain why, or you might tell them to boycott the election, if you think the election doesn't matter in countries like Iran. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>