On Sunday, Nov 10, 2002, at 12:45 US/Pacific, jeffrey blankfort wrote:
[..]
> Among serious activists, the organization is not taken seriously.
> That they are
> the only game in town is more than depressing.
[..]
I find much in common with your general concern, since I have my
own 'issues' with whether the GOP has decided to run on a platform
or is merely content with the policy position of 'we are not them'...
I'm way amused with your general analysis of the failure of the
American Communist Party to resolve some of it's internal issues, not
the least of which was the irony that the biggest subscriber to their
rag
was the american counter-intelligence community, so was it really
anything
more than a 'front organization' for them or the KGB.... 8-)
{ a part of why the new-left in general broke with the old guard }
Where I am somewhat concerned is you initial assertion:
"the bulk of those who become attracted to radical movements
and swell its ranks, tend to drift away when the goals of the
movement appear to have been reached."
I can empathise with the romantic american notion that we come from
the "great founding father's of the american revolution" but I think
most folks in the post-sixties world are basically able to admit that
probably no more than a third of colonial americans were actually
actively
involved - and on the order of a third were Tory, and the vast wasteland
in between was trying to find their way.
In part because I am not convinced that 'the movement' keyed itself on
being simply 'anti-Vietnam' - or anti-war - as much as it was about
the juxtaposition of the 'baby boomers' coming of age, and the blithe
naivete that youth brings to the discussion. A large percentage of the
vietnam vets dashed off on the romanticism of 'to bear any burden' in
ways similar to those who opted to oppose the government policy on
Vietnam.
We saw a similar almost blithe naivete arise again with the children's
crusade of the 'dot.com fiasco' - as
<bigFingerQuotes> "GenXer's" </bigFingerQuotes>
believed religiously that the solution was to be found in the e-biz
space
and that their involvement in 'the internet' was going to 'change the
world'.
Perchance the worst of all possible ironies in all of this IS the
classical struggle between the 'new left' elements and the 'yippies'
made geographical almost, with SF being the base for the 'turned on
generation',
Oakland the home of the Panthers, the Free Speach Political Radicals up
in Bezerkley - and, well, the Captain Crunch crowd wandering around
trying
to resolve what all could actually be done on the AT&T backbone....
{ I presume everyone knows the relationship between the 'phone phreaks'
and the origins of corporations like Apple, and the BSD release of unix,
and.... }
Along the way we would also find the Jesus Movement 'radicalizing' "the
church"
as former 'radical types' adopted 'Chairman Jesus' and/or took to the
bible in the same way that they had viewed other 'religious' and
'spiritualisms'.
One of my friends offered up:
> everyone--
>
> <http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11142002/ap_48954.asp>
>
> Great. Just what we need. Evangelical environmentalist Christians
> with no public relations game. I can't wait for the backlash against
> this to start...
and other of my WarMongerBuds giggled about how this would inevitably
lead to 'church/state' litigation making it illegal to have images of
electric cars in public schools....
What if the Politico's were Wrong? What if "everything is politics" is
merely so much 'bumper sticker' philosophizing? Or perchance that it
has always been 'political' - that it has always been about getting a
co-alition together, and keeping all of the kittens from wandering
off???
As some of the pundit's have noted - the good news is that the GOP has
control of the house, senate and white house.... the information is that
they will no longer be able to blame everything on the Clintons, the
democratic party, the... Now is their chance to resolve IF they actually
can maintain their own political cohesion. Or are they playing the same
consensus driven psycho-crisis of the Democrats in the sixties?
What if this is really all about a whole new set of opportunities? As
the
Republicrats shift into the vapid middle of the roaders - what if people
start raising the questions about how to work out and define the
'commons'
for which we need something like a 'government' to regulate that the
'commons' has been maintained for all????
What if 'radicalism' IS about 'roots' - and we can finally get past all
of the 'extremism' - and get back to our 'roots'. With a Third looking
forward, a Third looking backwards, { hey someone can work out whether
the champions of 'back to the sixties' are radicals or reactionaries }
and a Third of them are merely wandering around trying to make ends
meet...
ciao
drieux
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