[lbo-talk] infrastructure

[Carrol Cox]

People in action change the world, not critics in the bleachers. Such 
change is the result of social movements of one sort or antoher, and the 
_chief_ feature, the most visible feature, of any actual movement is 
that when people in it say we they arein that we people they don't like, 
people who are not, as it were, simpatico. (Eric's point about _fast_ 
change is important here.) It is impossible to predict which people in 
the world today are going to be the ones who change the world tomorrow. 
Hence generalized squawks about  random groups of people help keep 
capitalism healthy and vicious. Such generalizations count as an attack 
on the working class. (Of course they may  not count, period. But that 
is another matter.)

Paintings can be phoney. Twenty dollar bills can be phoney. People 
cannot, even if they try to be. They are simply people. Houseman's 
"Epitaph for an Army of Mercenaries" celebrates the wrong war -- butr 
leaving that aside, it is a poem leftists could learn from. It's got a 
rathehr better grip on reality than "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" 
(as gut-wrenchingly beautiful as the latter is).

The point I am making here is the point West was making with his 
references to Bob Avakian and Huey Newton: the core of his speech, not 
mentioned on  lbo.

Carrol