Dennis Claxton wrote:
> That's not the context for what Michael wrote. He gave a
> descriptive account of what he's observed and it was posted here to
> give info about the lay of the land to people who are interested in change.
The problem with ALL the posts, from all points of view, in this thread is that they all assume that "the lay of the land" NOW is or shoudl be of any interest to people who want to make change.
No one is going to make change now. No one is going to make change until change has already occured in the "lay of the land."
The word "despair" or some equivalent has consistently occured in the context of a description of current public opinion. The assumption throughout has been that current public opinion is in some way related to the problem of "making change." But it isn't.
Also, large percentages of "conservative opinion" are assumed to be bad for the left, and no attention at all is given to the small but measurable proportion of the public whose opinions look more acceptable. (In an actual surge of the left, some of the enemies would be curren radicals; some of the leaders woudl be current conservatives.) In other words, all the posters, though they will deny this loudly, are claiming to be able to rad tea leaves (public opinion now) and on the basis predict the future. This is political madness.
What do people think the phrase, so often used by Marxists, "The Present as History," means? What does it mean to say that Marx viewed capitalism historically?
ONly a veery small proportion of the public in the '60s was really for civil rights. A rather large majority was against desegregated housing. Only a very small proportion of the public was ever against the Vietnam war on the grounds that it was wrong; when a large number came to no longer support it (to say they were against it would be overstatement), they did so on the bais that "we" were not going to win it or use the froce necessary to win it. they didn't object to the mass slaughter of Vietnamese. And yet the gains made by the left in the '60s have proved far more lasting than the gains made by the left in the 1930s. And how much further back do you have to go to find a period when "the left" actually accomplished something?
There is nothing special about the present. It represents what has been normal over the whole history of capitalism.
And if people really think that electing Democrats now or in a 100 years will make a fuckingg bit of real change, .....
Carrol