On 10/29/06, Leigh Meyers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I think that's what Yoshie sensed when she typed:
> I might suggest that if I were talking to people who aren't familiar
> with Marx and Lenin. Here, the problem, imho, isnt' lack of theory.
> I'd say it's the vision thing that most Western leftists today don't
> have. :->
That 'vision', all 'vision' if I may be so bold, is built on empirical
knowledge, and it's where the 'left' of the 'vanguard' (Woof Woof Growl
Sic 'em...!) persuasion fails dramatically.
They need to take trips to Esalen Institute or somesuch, and sit in a
hot tub under the stars on a regular, much like the innovators in the
early days of personal computers.
Then maybe they'll come up with something that would be creative enough
to catch the imagination of the people of America, instead of just being
legends in their own minds.
So far, notable political successes in the West are all acts of saying
no to one thing or another:
No to the Social Security reform (US)
No to criminalization of undocumented immigrants (US)
No to the European Constitution (France and the Netherlands)
No to the First Employment Contract (France)
Saying no is important and buys people time. But it is striking that
there is no political success that indicates an emergence of a new
political vision on the Left, here or in Europe, that captures
people's imagination.
In Germany, a new political party called Left Party emerged and did
rather well in the elections last year (getting nearly 10% of the
vote), which is not insignificant for it forced the CDU and the SPD to
cohabit, and the resulting fragile coalition federal government didn't
get to reform everything against the working class as much as if
either of the dominant parties had won big-time. But as soon as the
Left Party got into the business of governing debt-loaded local
governments in a coalition with the SPD in Berlin and
Mecklenburg-Pomerania, its fortune sagged in those tow localities, for
it was forced to be part of budget cuts (though the Left Party's
overall popularity -- 9% -- in the latest poll is just about the same
level as last year).
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
