[lbo-talk] USA and protests -or lack thereof-

[Carrol Cox]

See the passage in Capital in which Marx notes that the English working
class took several decades to recover from the shock of
industrialization before their struggle for a shorter working day began.
Misery does _not_ automatically trigger resistance ANY PLACE. That is
one thing one can learn from reading books on the Chinese Revolution --
the absolute misery of much of the Chinese Peaantry and the incredible
amount of work it took to get them to move. It's the same every place
and it's really offensive to blame _any_ particular people as a people
at any time or place. I know this doesn't apply to dennis, but for the
most part those who complain about passivity are pretty much as shag
describes in their relationship to any persistent effort to move people
in a collective way.

Carrol

SA wrote:
> 
> Sheldon Baker wrote:
> > "...these Americans will never get angry enough to revolt,"
> >
> > Never say never, but I often fear you are correct.
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Dennis Perrin <dperrin at comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> >> "For much less economic hardship citizens in other countries take their
> >> pledge to the streets."
> >>
> >> Too many Americans identify with their rulers. Even if their rulers fuck
> >> them on a regular basis, these Americans will never get angry enough to
> >> revolt, much less march. The main narrative has been internalized. This is
> >> why those pwogs who predict that Obama will face wrath from his left if he
> >> gives too much to the pigs are living in a dream world.
> >>
> 
> I share the sentiment, but the same thing was true in the Great
> Depression at about this stage. Here's a description of the mood in the
> U.S. in late 1931/early 1932 (pp. 89-90):
> 
> http://sites.google.com/site/s11131978/Home/fff.pdf?attredirects=0
> 
> SA
> 
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