" I don't understand the problem you and Doug have with my view that social revolution is unlikely to appear on the political horizon in the North any time soon. It seems to me that we all agree on that."
I think you fetishise social revolution. Just because we do not live in a time of revolutionary change, it seems to me, one should not succumb to the temptation of declaring a revolution where none exists. The wish should not be father to the thought.
It strikes me as wishful thinking to imagine that the revolution is just over the other side of the hill, a little too distant to be made out. You batter us with examples from all over the world which seem more striking... the further they are from our own experience and the possibilities of verification.
If I am sceptical, it is because I have seen people projecting their revolutioary fantasies upon other peoples for too long. How many well-meaning critics of western society deceived themselves into thinking that the revolution would come fully formed from over the seas, carried by Stalin's tanks, or Mao's Long March, or Che's guerilla army? Didn't all of these dreams end up in good people praising tyrants?
I am with Carrol on this one (whether he likes it or not). The question of who is the vanguard will be decided in fact, not by prior identification.
But more to the point, social revolution is not an ever present human condition that must be filled by someone, anyone. The question of the day is not always social revolution. To think otherwise would make Zombie categories out of Lenin's theory.