[lbo-talk] Here comes the Big One?

[ravi]

On 10 Aug, 2007, at 13:15 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> What is it with people on the left? So eager to put 30 million people
> out of work — the modern equivalent of the 1929–32 rise in
> unemployment — to make a political point! I can understand the
> temptation of looking to some big smashup — in many ways, the 1930s
> stand out as a period of enlightenment and innovation in American
> politics. I guess leftists are always hoping that some kind of crisis
> will once again lift the scales from people's eyes, and a lot more
> quickly than conventional agitation, organization, and education ever
> will. (Or as Edmund Wilson said after the 1929 crackup: "One couldn't
> help being exhilarated at the sudden unexpected collapse of that
> stupid gigantic fraud.") But what guarantee would there be that
> people would look to humane collective action in a crisis? They could
> just as easily fall in step with jackbooted xenophobes.

Without endorsing the glee, I have some thoughts in response:

* [a large part of] the people are already in step with the jackboots,

   especially when it comes to xenophobia.

* the poor are mostly asset free and income starved, so the brunt of

   any collapse (I am guessing) would be borne by the fat, pampered,

   wilfully delusional middle and upper-middle classes.

* Unlike me (member of the pampered upper-middle), many leftists

   have put their actions where their mouth is, to advance the very

   interests that would protected the non-rich from such a

   catastrophe. Often sacrificing much more gainful employment. So

   they are due some glee when the dire consequences they warned so

   much about come around to bite the masses in the arse.

* We are not talking about Tutsis facing genocide here. And hell,

   if in that case we can insist, on principle, against intervention,

   so what if they all die, we don't need to go sensitive here! (*)

All that said, I pray to what-have-you that there is no meltdown, for  
it would really suck to have to drag my pampered arse back into the  
rat-race.

	--ravi

(*) To be fair: those leftists who oppose intervention, do so because  
they believe it would do more harm in all cases. I disagree.