On 2010-09-01, at 7:01 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> At times when gains have been made there was a previously 'untapped' 5%
> of the population that became militant, resulting in some movement
> among those who were either apolitical or DP voters (who may have
> continued to be DP voters even as they responded most strongly to the
> militant movement.
However you want to slice it, your hypothetical "militant 5%" of previously apolitical and DP voters continued to support the Democrats with varying degrees of enthusiasm after becoming involved in the movements.
> So it depends on what you mean by a " a great
> untapped vein of radicalism."
This would be commonly understood to mean those who are ready to reject the Democratic party in favour of a third party formation like the Greens or one of the tiny revolutionary socialist grouplets. I'd be surprised to learn that you beleive there to be a greater pool of informed voters and potential recruits to social causes within the Democrat party, which I do believe to be the case at present, however much we might wish it were otherwise.
> There is of course no majority or even a
> remotely possible majority of the population that is radical, but there
> are certainly one or two million!
How are you so "certain" there are one to two million Americans who would describe themselves as on the "radical" left rather than as "liberal"?
> In the mid-60s it took about 200 or so
> of us out of a population of 40,00 to bring Open Housing ordinances to
> both Normal and Bloomington and the establishment of Human Relatoins
> Commissions. And we didn't reall have much support from any larger part
> of the community. We just disturbed the smooth operation of the two
> cities.
Yes, and I would guess only a very small percentage of your 200 were opposed to voting for Democrats in pursuit of these reforms, which would have reflected the typical liberal:radical ratio in the civil rights and other movements of that period.
> Social change (including revolution) is always the result of the work of
> a fairly small part of the total population.
Again, you're mistakenly describing as radical all those who want "social change", which is not the meaning which usually attaches to the term. As I very well recall, radicals were those like ourselves seeking to replace capitalism with socialism; liberals, whom we typically saw as innocents or careerists, were those who only wanted reform of the the system. No wonder you estimate there are "one to two million radicals" out there; you've conveniently converted today's liberal-minded American supporters of unions and other social movements into "radicals".
A confusion which in turn, IMO, leads you to underestimate the size of the mass constituencies which have fought for social change in the past.