[lbo-talk] flush *that* social movement thesis?

[Carrol Cox]

Rising expectations frustrated is not the same as being beaten down by a 
serious austerity prgram. But the question still is a bit sticky. And 
it's one that can be speculated on but not resolved by argument or 
theoretically. The resolution in practice, however, is simple. One has 
to keep beating on the damn door whenever one can get 4 or 5 people to 
join in the action. If instead of dying away (or at lest not getting any 
traction), as is usally the case (and has been for the most part since 
1970 -- if instead more people flock in, THEN one can push further -- 
and so forth. It's not predictable -- i.e., not theorizable. A subject 
line on a recent post onthe Solidarity list was "We have a movement." 
Well, maybe. But also maybe we have something better: We have a hell of 
a lot of people lookigng real hard for a Movement. We will see.

Carrol

On 10/3/2011 10:22 AM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
>
> Ok, so the social movement thesis bandied about here has been that
> people are move apt to get pissed off and demonstrate about their
> anger during economically good times.
>
> Does OWS contradict this?
>
> Or do we go with McAdam's thesis in Freedom Summer? That people get
> pissed off when their expectations have been raised and then the
> politicians who've been elected to meet those expectations fail
> miserably at doing so.
>
> shag
>