http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20110718/007945.html
[WS:] I am sorry I missed that. I agree with your point that 2008 was a "unique point in time" - but I disagree that the opposition forces (however defined) were ready to take action. General dissatisfaction and crises can lead only so far - typically to mass protests, but a crucial next step is that opposition must have sufficiently strong organization to be able to take over when the status quo is in disarray. Otherwise, the opposition will be defeated even by a weakened enemy.
This is what happened in Libya - where the so called opposition is still alive only because NATO does the fighting for it - and in the US. There is no organized opposition to the neoliberal hegemony - just a bunch of malcontents kvetching about it on the internet. If we were to learn from history - Lenin or Mao were able to seize the moment when the status quo was weakened precisely because they had the organization on the ground. So wake me up when a similar organization will emerge in the US - but before that happens all we can do is to keep voting and kvetching for whom we vote.
PS. I do not think that people are naive - this is your interpretation - i just do not see any forces able to defeat neoliberalism at the moment. It is like being in Europe in 1942 - most of the western Europe defeated, Russian retreating, England hanging for her life on the skin of her teeth - no hope in sight. So if in such bleak times someone complains that if the quislings took a harder stance against the nazis things would be different - I am sorry, but i find it laughable.
OTOH, you were right on the target about nationalistic fervor against neoliberalism in developing countries.
Wojtek