--- On Tue, 8/11/09, Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Christian Parenti argues that the ruling class was scared
> shitless by the wave of '60s riots and by no means
> considered the threat negligible. And if it isn't
> initially clear what "groups of people" Reagan is referring
> to, he clarifies it with his reference to "a long hot
> summer."
>
[WS:] It is just an opinion, one that I happen to disagree with. The empire survived a much better armed and organized insurrection attempts than a riot mob here and there. Not only that - it crushed those attempts without giving much in. Just think of the Confederacy, Indian wars, or coal wars.
If the US ruling class was ever scared shitless after the Civil War - it was the rise of the USSR and the challenge it posed not only to the US imperialism abroad, but the example it set for the masses at home. This was the only time, in my view, when the ruling class took the threat from below seriously and embarked on appeasement polices to defuse that threat. In other words, the after the Sputnik went up, so did the US government funding for education and social programs as well as the salience of the civil rights agenda.
Otherwise, paraphrasing one wealthy US industrialist (his name escapes me at the moment) the US ruling class has always been in the position to hire a half of the working (and middle) class to subdue the other half. In other words, no serious threat from below.
Of course, you and others can believe in the revolutionary potential of the poor and the threat their pose to the US institutional order - just as I disbelieve it. It is a matter of personal opinion and I am afraid that neither of us can convince the other side to the contrary.