[lbo-talk] Dispiriting Suburbs?

[wrobert at uci.edu]

On the other hand, Michael Denning in The Cultural Front, makes an
argument that the politics of the popular front were a serious attempt to
reimagine and recreate an American society on a radical democratic basis. 
Instead of reading this as a mode of conservatism, he reads it as a
serious claim for hegemony.  I think that there is something to his
reading in that we need to find the precidents for radical transformation
to some degree within the society that we live in, otherwise there is no
potential for transformation.

                         Robert Wood


> On Oct 20, 2006, at 3:34 PM, Michael Pollak wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 19 Oct 2006, Doug Henwood quoted:
>>
>>> "...the quixotic fantasy of activists who craved acceptance from
>>> the same society they wanted to revolutionize."
>>
>> I'm a little baffled by your approbation for that sentence.
>>
>> If democratic change is possible, then by definition, society is
>> going to have to accept our ideas.
>
> The context for this is Kazin's point that most American radicals -
> all the permutations of the populist strain, including the CP in its
> popular front phase - have done so as "patriots," accusing elites of
> corruption and betrayal of the constitution and American ideals. It's
> all a closed circle: we need to get back to some "true Americanism"
> which the vile usurpers have sullied. So no critique of American
> society as needing a serious overhaul is possible, because that would
> be "unpatriotic."
>
> Doug
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