cgrimes at rawbw.COM wrote:
>
>
> Carrol writes:
>
> ``So the whole topic is simply silly..''
>
> It might sound silly at the moment. But I don't think you see the
> issue involved. It has to do with constructing a socialist economy
> within the framework of the existing institutions and through well
> established politcal means compatible with US history and
> traditions.
>
> In other words, no revolution is necessary. Pursuing social justice
> doesn't require the hypocrisy of shooting a lot of people
> to get there (much as I might like too, just to shut them up).
Residents of core capitalist nations do have to get the image of national liberation wars, with their protracted armed struggle, out of their heads. In any revolution in the U.S. or France or Japan there would be 10 or so revolutionaries shot for everyone they shot. See films on the Iranian revolution. It looked more like the Easter Parade than a guerilla struggle, though in that case it had to be backed up by low level guerilla struggle in some parts of Iran. Engels recognized this well over a century ago. People win a revolution when the army refuses to shoot any more of them.
I have never bothered to argue with Andie or Doug about their pipedream of a legal road to socialism. It might be fairly peaceful but it certainly will not be legal or by constitutional means. Not worth arguing about because up to very near the end there is no difference between revolutionary struggle and mass struggle for reforms.
There hasn't been a revolution yet in Venezuela, which only bothers doctrinaire Trotskyists; Venezuela is on a socialist path but it's a long ways from socialism and we have no real idea of all the turns and twistings which will come in that path, or how long it will take. Lenin was right in his first guess that the Russian Revolution could not survive without a revolution in Europe. But he was also right to plunge ahead as far as they could. Venezuela will never get to socialism without a socialist revolution in the u.s., but they should keep struggling for it anyhow.
And what in the hell is hypocritical about shooting people if they attack you. And if socialism DID come by legal means to the u.s it would be overthrown in a week by a coup unless it fought back illegally and violently. Carrol