The "war machine" thing is - to put it hyperbolically - a Leninist canard.
The opportunities for the Left have never been better because the Right has no idea how to get us out of the mess we are dropping into.
I am very optimistic.
Barring total world destruction, I think we have a good chance here.
I make our odds to be about....5 to 4.
On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 10:49 AM, rayrena <rayrena at realtime.net> wrote:
>
> > There are quite a few leftists, in fact probably 10s of
>> thousands, which is why the problem they all face is
>> soemhow coalescing into some sort of provisional loose
>> coalition out of which may come both more impact on
>> national affairs and a clearer basis for theorizing what,
>> in these post-2d Inernational post-3rd international "A
>> Left" might look like.
>
> To the extent that I can make sense of the distinction
> between "leftists" and "the left," it sounds like Hegelian
> mysticism to me: the whole is true. But how can you account
> for what happens in the interim, between political eras (or
> political sequences, as Badiou calls them in a move similar
> to yours), between the internationals? Is what is happening
> now not political, or must some negating threshold be
> reached for an era to be called political?
>
>> Of course not, but that's not the issue. The issue is
>> whether leftists can widen their circle of relations
>> through participation in (or creation of) efforts (known
>> to be futile) to impact on national policy. This is how
>> every significan popular movement in modern history has
>> developed: through the repeated futile efforts of
>> scattered resisters to coalesce around various attempts to
>> constrain ruling powers.
>>
>> I'm not pushing anything at all original: merely
>> summarizing universal practice of the last 200 years.
>
> No, not the universal practice. Movements don't always move
> by expansion; sometimes subtraction makes a movement. And
> the best ones don't seek their end in influencing national
> power. Also, while I do think "futile efforts" are valuable
> -- at least when the compared to their opposite, the
> measurement of success -- it's wrong to say that "every
> significant popular movement...coalesce(s) around various
> attempts to constrain ruling powers." Feminism, for
> instance, did effect a blockage of male, state, and
> democratic power, but that was secondary to its political
> desire, a consequence not a cause of its actions.
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