[Peace-discuss] We can hope

[John W.]

So what you're saying, Carl, is that we CANNOT hope?


On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 4:50 AM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:

"...It's a measure of how depoliticized we are that a speed bump like the
> Congressional rejection is viewed as the beginning of some kind of
> revolution. If liberals like William Greider and Al Giordano really believe
> that a game-changing populist shift is looming, they're either hallucinating
> or cynically yanking their readers. Because if a serious groundswell is
> about to erupt, where can it go? What will be its ultimate destination?
> There's no real alternative support network for such a thing. No opposition
> party which this energy and anger can animate and empower. There is only one
> route, and that is right back to the Democrats. And if you are at all
> conscious, you know exactly what that means.
>
> "Too harsh? Think back to a real populist period, say the late-19th
> century, when massive strikes shut down industry, when millions of working
> people were politically active, published their own newspapers, and created
> their own grassroots power centers. The work required to organize and
> educate workers in those days was especially hard, given the lack of
> instantaneous technological outreach. Yet it happened, all across the
> country. The elites of that time did tremble, until they unleashed federal
> troops on strikers and marchers, mowing them down with gunfire and clubs,
> throwing organizers in jail, suppressing newspapers. This continued right
> through the Woodrow Wilson years, a Democrat whom I credit in "Savage Mules"
> with creating the first modern American police state model, a gift that
> subsequent elites modified and streamlined to this day. And all along the
> way, people's political power has been crushed, bought off, or simply
> steered into the corporate parties.
>
> "...I don't see anything remotely approaching the collective activism of
> those earlier years..."
>
> From <http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2008/10/halluci-nation.html>.
>
>
> C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>
>>    Bailout Lesson: Capital Crisis Will Wreck Both Parties
>>
>    Wednesday, 01 October 2008
>>    by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
>> ...
>>
>
>
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