<div style="direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"> <div style="direction: ltr;">On 4/14/06, Wojtek Sokolowski <<a href="mailto:sokol@jhu.edu" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">sokol@jhu.edu</a>> wrote:</div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">So while it is obvious that things would be much different if people just said "No" to elites, the  real problem is how to get there.  As I see it, it is not possible right now, because the right has everything going for them - from mastering the art of marketing and opinion manipulation, to having the best experts on their side, to having the comunications technology on their disposal to providing the goodies everyone wants and, most importantly, the grunts themselves eagerly identifying themslves with the right.   It will change only if an external force or a natural disaster takes away the right's capacity to manipulate public opinion, manufacture "safe" identities, and deliver the goodies everyone wants. As I read history, succesful revolutions occurred only AFTER the power and control capacity of the ruling elite had already been broken by external forces (wars, foreign occupation, or natural disasters).</blockquote></div> <div> And there it is again:  What you are articulating is a very specific type of ideology, that is often articulated by the relatively well-off. It is precisely this world-view, this defeatist ideology, that we must educate people (like you and me) out of accepting.  We must do this in order to get started again and again.  If thousands and thousands of educated people like you and me would just postpone our belief that it is all useless and that we are isolated, and all the lesser folks who are not as smart as us are manipulated, and that there is no way to break through, if we could give up on this "realism" then we would begin to break through.   It is "not possible" you say to do anything right now.  If it is not then we should just give up and  accept the state of the world and wait.  We should present our throats to the knife or try to come oppressors ourselves, and go somewhere where we can be left alone.  These are the only conclusions I can draw from what you have written.  And then in your previous email you tell me that you don't think people should resign and that you are not a defeatist?  Well give me another name for your "realism", for your depression.  If this is not defeatism then what is it?  And what is your ultimate solution?  That we should wait until some deus ex machina of a disaster saves us?  Historically, such defeats have led to the destabilization of ruling groups.  But the usual result is very, nasty.  People turn against all outsiders, destroying each other and anyone not like them.  Tyranny, fascism, slaughter.  This is the usual result of such disasters down through history.  Unless, before the disaster there is organization and education and a good 33% of the people are already well enough organized to get something good going again.  I am sorry I feel like I have been harsh in this email.  I don't mean to be.  I want to be generous, but I see no other conclusions from what you have written.  Jerry </div>