Doug Henwood wrote:
> Forstater, Mathew wrote:
>
> >This is "as good as it gets." There is a certain kind of fed-upedness that
> >should come with that.
>
> Yup. Which is one of the reasons I keep saying that "good times" may
> be better for left politics than bad times.
That's my assumption too -- but it isn't wholly clear *why* it is the case. And
so much left tactical and strategic theorizing is based on the opposite
assumption
that very little thinking has gone into the strategies and tactics for taking
advantage of periods of expansion -- or as to what kind of expansion can
lead to the fed-upedness Mathew speaks of.
*Fanshen* is of some interest in this regard. It was only with immense effort
that the local CP in Longbow involved the most oppressed in the struggle --
even after the Red Army had triumphed in the region those elements of
the population were too fearful even to testify publicly against the landlords
and thugs who had oppressed them. And as to present period, it is not
clear either that the expansion has gone on long enough or that it has been
*felt* as an expansion to trigger the kind of resistance that began in the
south in the late '50s. It is *not*, I believe, "good times" as such that
are conducive to struggle but the opening up of a sense of possibility. That
is why struggles can arise among conditions that are worse than any we
have experienced in the United States: not because or primarily because
conditions are bad but because of slight improvements opening up a
sense of possibility. (That is why the vile JFK nevertheless contributed
to the uprising of the '60s. His lies worked too well and really convinced
people, or at least many young people, that public affairs were a
desirable field of activity.)
One related point. A year or so ago on this list in a discussion of the
anti-war movement of the '60s many insisted that it was the threat
of the draft that motivated that movement. I think that is totally untrue.
The college students who built the movement were angry, not
fearful, and the draft was significant in one way and one way only
-- it provided a convenient target for dramatic symbolism (in the
burning of draft cards). It is self-interest that generates struggle,
but not in any simple or mechanical sense.
Carrol
