(and)
"What the future will look like I have no idea, and lots of people will want to have a say in it who are coming from very different backgrounds from mine."
(BW) (1) This is always the problem with the anti-war position. If you take it seriously (and who doesn't?) it trumps every other politics. You find yourself in bed with libertarians and paleo-conservatives, like Sen. Webb, Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan. And happy to have them on your side!
(2)"Thinking clearly" deserves a lot of respect as a personal goal. Carrol said the same thing yesterday, when he said this is not a time for recruiting but for rethinking basic suppositions.
(3) "lots of people from different backgrounds" will have a say in the future. This reminds me of the vision of Negri and Hardt in Multitude. I understand their position to be that resistance is not going to happen in the heart of empire, where the majority are co-opted by bread and circuses, but on the periphery where the new proletariat and sub-proletariat are being formed. N and H dont pretend to know what form this resistance will take, but they venture that one of its core principles will be greater democracy, greater participation by people in the decisions that affect their lives. Yoshie made that comment too yesterday.
These impoverished masses who will become the "Multitude" of the future far outnumber us, and it's a little frightening to think that they now control the agenda. Doug's point that there are plenty of worthy political actions to pursue (single-payer health, support of labor, lving wage, etc) is a valid one, but in a sense we are just making capitalism a better capitalism (as FDR did), while capitalism' real destiny is unfolding elsewhere.
BobW
--- Michael Smith <mjs at smithbowen.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 2007-10-27 at 15:44 -0400, Doug Henwood
> wrote:
>
> > So your position isn't all that different from
> mine after all.
>
> It probably isn't. One difference I can see is that
> I don't
> spend any time volunteering criticism of the IR, and
> disengage
> very quickly from any in-depth discussion of how
> good or bad
> they are. I cheer 'em on _qua_ fellow-foes of the
> Empire and
> remain seated, ostentatiously studying my
> fingernails
> and yawning, for the daily Two Minutes Hate (or
> whatever
> it was).
>
> Perhaps one other more general difference is that
> I'm not a
> universalist. I don't see 'progress' in history in
> terms of
> the diffusion of Enlightenment values -- though I
> value
> 'em personally. Or some of 'em, anyway. I see
> short-term
> progress as a matter of balking and baffling the
> Empire,
> to the extent possible; and expropriating the
> expropriators,
> ditto. What the future will look like I have no
> idea, and
> lots of people will want to have a say in it who are
> coming
> from very different backgrounds from mine. The idea
> of
> a single universal civilization seems too far in the
> future
> even to speculate about -- and to tell the truth,
> I'm not
> even sure it's such an attractive prospect.
>
>
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