[lbo-talk] Let's argue Ted Kennedy at least for a few more posts

Chuck Grimes cgrimes at rawbw.com
Wed Aug 26 22:41:05 PDT 2009


But Kennedy was a leader in deregulation, following Nader, in seeing deregulation as consumer friendly. Michael Perelman

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I wouldn't argue against that at all. It was through thinking about the whole Kennedy, Nader, et al. agenda that I finally saw the depth of the illusion of what a US liberal was, and how I became much more radical. They are responsible for me becoming a Marxist and maybe even a commie... of some alternate permutation. Ultimately they were not there when it counted in radical civil rights, anti-war, anti-exploitation...

There are other dimensions too. I always thought that oppression in and of itself was the bitters that spiked the gin of radicalism ready for revolution... Not so. Oppression and recognition of that condition is not in itself sufficient. Even education in the ways of capital and its manipulations of the political economy is not sufficient, although all that helps and is also necessary.

There is some magic ingredient or condition or concept that I've never been able to identify that is also necessary. Whatever the big X is, it does the ignition. Part of that ignition is the understanding that liberals like Kennedy are friends to the cause all the way up to when it really starts to count. Then they drop away. Same with the anarchists. They are great friends in the street battles, but terrible in the meetings when it has to be hammered out as policy. Same with the criminals. They love a fight, but hate the discipline. And on and on it goes. Then there is the whole other wing of the radical identity politics that work right to the point when they have to become part of the mass.

Science is another mixed bag. Science because it is supposed to be devoted to the empirical and the radicalization of reality is supposed to contribute, and yet most scientists are nimwhits when it comes to the radical transformation of the political economy.

I don't know enough, I am not smart enough... but that's were we have to get, on the edge. I think discussing Kennedy's mixed adventure helps.

CG



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