Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> I'm not suggesting abandonment at all. I was trying to explain why
> people were excited about Chavez and not making more radical demands.
> The old ideas have lost some of their popular appeal, don't you think?
Since the "old ideas" never had much "popular appeal" in the U.S. it is a bit strange to say that they have lost an appeal they never had.
And in reference to B.'s strange slur at Chavez -- I don't know of any workers's movement anyplace anytime that die not involve strong leaders at various levels. The Fisher Body sit-down strikers didn't wake up one morning in their private residences rose up with a mystic determination to occupy the plant that day! In fact, the "workers' movment" of the '30s was strongly dependent on the leadership of a real jerk in comparison to Chavez, John L. Lewis. That movement was not strong enough at the base to resist the top-down decision of the C.I.O. leadership _not_ to challenge Jim Crow in the south (and in fact to suppress a union local in Memphis which had successfully challenged racism).
Carrol