Re: Rethinking Liberalism
On Apr 23, 2007, at 5:36 PM, Marvin Gandall wrote:
For Marxists and others on the far left, there really is no good alternative: either huddle together in intellectual and activist
ghettoes and hurl manifestoes into the void or mix in more mainstream
milieus and progressively discover through practice that the mass of the
population is simply unwilling - because it finds it unnecessary - to become
involved in anything other than well-contained electoral struggles for incremental reform. There is little possibiilty to merge theory and practice,
as there once was and could one day be again.
Wise advice, as usual, Marvin. The thing I find so hard to understand
is that Jim has spent a lot of time trying to organize workers into
unions - and once organized, keep them there - and from what I hear,
the experience has made him very aware of the fact that the thinking
of the American working class has little in common with Ours. Soooo,
Jim, do you really think that parachuting more of us into places like
Las Vegas (”interesting in a cultural studies kind of way for a few
days, but after that, you realize it’s just a shithole” - Christian
Parenti, after a recent visit) will make that much of a difference?
Doug