But if the world is ever going to change, it is those masses, or a sub-division of them, who are going to change it. Focusing on their conservatism as shown polls (either public opinion polls or elections -- no real diffeence) will show that they will never be different and fuck the world. It can only lead to despair.
What leftists need to put their brains to is how they can contribute to the appearance (not bbring about that appearance but contributre to it) of the conditons under which a sector of the masses react differently. Those conditions won't be brought about or even made more likely by praching to the empty world reached by newspapers, blogs, magazines, radio shows, etc. Those can be useful ways for leftists to communicate with each other but not useful ways to reach the "masses."
Or, as I have argued many times, if one's focus is on the present, it is impossible to see any hope. It is asbsolutely true that because of the nature of public opinion "You can't get there from here." And the more you try to figure out how to get there from here the more you will plunge into despair. But the present is not reality. It is just the present, which dies even as you speak of it.
Wjat difference does it make what people think today? No difference at all. What counts is how they will be thinking at some unpredictable time inthe future when unpredictble events suddently create a new present -- from which it becomes POSSIBLE, NOT CERTAIN OR EVEN PROBABLY BUT POSSIBLE -- that we can get there from (that future) here.
But if leftists prefer to simply damn people for their stupidity and wrong thinking . . . .Maybe it's fun.
Carrol
Eric Beck wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 6:51 AM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> > Sometimes I think that many on the left see the masses as some radical
> > sleeping giant just waiting for an alarm to ring. They aren't, you know.
>
> False binary!
>
> A few years ago the "immigration problem" started to boil over, with
> the Minutemen and those nuts of course, but even "responsible" people
> started to question if there were too many illegals in the U.S.
> Conservatives, of course, wanted to throw 'em all out and build a
> wall. Liberals brayed: That's inhumane! Crack down on the evil
> companies that employ them, regulate and monitor their hiring
> practices. So that's what the Bush administration did, with workplace
> raids ramping up late in 2006 and continuing until today. The result:
> a few businesses fined though nothing that's caused any serious
> blockage of the wheels of commerce. Meanwhile, many thousands of
> migrants "caught up" in the raids have been harassed, terrorized,
> deported, thrown into camps and jails, spread out across the country
> to locations where their support networks can't find them or even know
> about their status. That's regulation in the U.S.
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