[lbo-talk] Tracking the decline of the left's historic base

brad bauerly bbauerly at gmail.com
Thu Feb 11 12:06:19 PST 2010


Doug responded with this:


> Carrol's response could have been a bit more measured, but I really
> wonder if Chomsky is right about the demographic. That would be
> especially true of the Tea Party people. I have my doubts that they're
> really working class - if they're heavily populated by small biz types
> and self-employed professionals, that's not a promising constituency
> for a left.
>
> Doug
>
To this post by Carrol:


> "The population 'reachable' by the left has to be detrmined by practice.
> That is, if a left movement becomes visible, then other embryonic
> movements will appear and some of them will become part of the left.
> You cannot establish by sociological and/or economic analysiss _in
> advacnce_ who is reachable."

Huh????

Besides, I don't really remember anyone arguing that we should be reaching out to the tea-gang. The point is that with no left alternative to the issues being raised a large portion of the public will accept the tea-gang nonsense by default. Of course no one should care what the very small percentage of the population that is self employed or owns small businesses does or thinks. I am afraid that the political influence of the tea-gang is much larger than you think.

Brad



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