[lbo-talk] 36% of Americans have a positive image of socialism

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Fri Feb 5 17:10:44 PST 2010


On Fri, 5 Feb 2010, Carrol Cox wrote:


> Since socialism will never be the explicit goal of a socialist
> revolution

Carrol, do you believe a revolution in the US would change things for the better? And do you believe there is any chance of one happening in the next 50 years?

I don't believe either of those things.

I also really don't understand what revolution has to do with this discussion. From your praise of the 60s, you clearly you think things short of a revolution can have a large effect. Maybe you meant "movement" when you said "revolution?"

If your argument is that only mass action creates thought; and no one can know what will set off mass action; and that WITBD is to be done is keep making trouble creatively constantly and waiting until one of them is the fractal accident that starts the movement avalanche -- well clearly, within such a framework, all worrying about the inadequacies of how we speak and think is besides the point.

But from the POV of that theory, the whole question of why the right is more effective than the left is besides the point since in that framework, the left never gets anywhere by influencing people.

Michael



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