On 2011-08-22, at 9:20 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
> Zizek is right on the money when he talks about the need of an
> organization to transform a rebellion into a revolution. Western
> history is full of peasant rebellions that went nowhere - the rage
> erupted and subsided, the leaders were eventually caught and hanged,
> the peasant returned back to their toil. These peasant discontent
> turned into a revolution, as they did in Russia or China, only when
> some form of organization was able to capture their potential and
> employ to a revolutionary project.
>
>> From a somewhat different angle - the reason why capitalists are
> winning and disgruntled grunts - and their leftist cheerleaders - are
> losing is that the former have powerful organization at their disposal
> (aka the corporation) whereas the latter eschew any organization in
> favor of amorphous spontaneous activities - from looting and smashing
> windows to kvetching on the internet.
Which includes, you'll admit, kvetching about "the need for an organization to transform a rebellion into a revolution." If you truly want to make a start, there are lots of little aspiring groups out there to join (http://www.broadleft.org/us.htm).
I doubt you or Zizek or other unattached leftist intellectuals have in mind a revolutionary blueprint that these organizations and their more formidable historical predecessors have not devised, tested, and rejected in frustration. The problem is not a lack of political will or political organization; it's the lack of a militant working class movement with a revolutionary socialist following as once existed to sustain these.