shag wrote:
>
>
> they are nice, well-meaning people. I try hard to understand the homophobia
> and the hatred of poor blacks, etc. But I'm sorry, if they are the kind of
> people who are in this movement and they cheer at the things i listed
> below, I can't see it as especially progressive.
For reasons indicated roughly today, for me "progressive" has become a synonym for "feel-good conservatism." Implicit in the word is that we are on a path. We t5ake steps forward on that path, and if we just keep taking those tiny steps eventually we will arrive -- where?
The word we need is "radical." If it isn't radical, it's conservative or worse. After all, the first big name under the label "Progressive" was a man who thought strikers ought to be treated as France treated the Communards.
Progress as in progressive politics takes you in an endless circle. There will be a Republican in the White House no later than January 2021.
If you persuade (say) 1 million scattered voters this year to support "progressive" candidates, that's 50 million too few. By the time you peruade another million, the first million will have lost interest. I almost cried as I read the dialogue between Michael and Doug a few months ago on a slow sure (!) way to build towards a single-payer health plan. But with that kind of politics, all you gain in (say) the third year is wasted because everything you gained in the first year has leaked away. That's why I bewildered Andy by saying you couldn't get it in 50 years but might get it in 3 years.
History is not a path. Steps don't go anyplace.
Action has changed the world a number of times in the past few centuries - but patient building has never done a fucking thing, and within capitalism never will.
Carrol
P.S. It's hard to believe that anyone who has thought at all could conceivably see _any_ 'lesson' for leftists in the way conservatives built up after Goldwater's defeat. But anyone who thinks that is too completely unaware of the social dynamics of capitalism for it to be worthwhile arguing with him/her.