On 2010-09-03, at 2:08 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
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> Marv Gandall wrote:
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>> Right. "History suggests the masses won't consider overthrowing the existing system and experimenting with a new one unless and until a) their personal circumstances deteriorate to the point that they consider them life threatening and b) it has become abundantly clear that neither of the established parties has proved able to arrest the slide and c) their desperation for change has finally overcome their fear of repression."
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> This is terribly, even tragically, wrong. What Marvin describes here is
> the very opposite of the truth: he describesd a world that is perfectly
> caught up in a few words from Old Man River: "Tired of living, and
> feared of dying." No one will revolt in the world Marvin describes, for
> it is a world without hope.
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Nonsense. No ruling class was ever overthrown without the masses considering their conditions of life were worsening and there was no longer any hope of peaceful redress of their grievances within the existing system. But this did not mean they were tired of living and devoid of all hope.
On the contrary, those who rose in revolt were typically inspired by the belief that they were bringing into birth a new world from the ashes of the old, frequently demonstrating an extraordinary capacity for personal sacrifice in pursuit of the common goal. "O workers' Revolution,” Mike Gold once wrote, “you brought hope to me, a lonely, suicidal boy" - an ecstatic paean to the struggle for revolutionary change which has been expressed in different ways and different languages by those who were individually and collectively liberated by them at every stage of human history.