"If the workers of the world want to win, all they have to do is ...

[Scuba]

"If the workers of the world want to win, all they have to do is recognize their own solidarity. They have to do nothing but fold their arms and the world will stop."


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APOzpztuzWg

[villager]

1. One of the bosses' errand runners has been by to unrec already...

n/t

[Scuba]

5. Good. That means we're getting to them.

[Davis_X_Machina]

7. The 'them' referred to above...

...doesn't come here, probably doesn't know DU exists, and if they do, are secure in the knowledge that the far greater resources at their disposal permits them to act as they do. DU is a gnat, on a fly, on the back of an elephant.

Solidarity, absent a far greater level of immiseration than this country has seen so far, is very, very difficult to achieve. Solidarity necessarily involves admitting that one needs others, even strangers, to flourish, even perhaps to survive; that others, even strangers, have a valid claim on some of your time and treasure; that there exist actual problems beyond one’s power to solve alone, or beyond even one’s immediate tribal community to solve. That's a tough sell -- people have to alter their self-concept.

That's a tough sell in all but the toughest times. The UK, France, the US, Canada, Scandinavia, all came out of the Great Depression -- times far tougher than the present -- with the same basic regime they went into it with. And that was before globalization.

[Davis_X_Machina]

2. The idea that...

...les ouvriers n'ont pas de patrie died on the first day of WWI. Almost a hundred years ago, now.

Any Left that doesn't prepare to grapple with issues of the reality of nationalism, and identity politics, is doomed.

Emma Goldman may have said 'If I can't dance, I don't want your revolution', but the worker of today is more likely to say 'If I don't have a home team, a flag, an anthem, and an army, I don't want your revolution.'

Lee Greenwood beats Die Rote Fahne/Bandiera Rossa/The Workers' Flag is Deepest Red every time.

Thread unrecced for living in a dream world, rather than from a capitalist perspective, if you ask me.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Maybe it's about time people got past some of that bullshit.

And to tell you the truth, I think it's happening.

From what I see around me every day, it's happening.

[Davis_X_Machina]

4. It was happening in the days of Eugene Debs...

...Jean Jaurés and Keir Hardie, too.

And that was a hundred years ago.

Solidarity in America? This is the Saudi Arabia of false consciousness -- world's largest reserves, world's largest production capacity.

Bullshit's remarkably durable. The ancien regime lasted for centuries.

[villager]

6. *Ancien regimes* are running out of cheap fuel, and stable weather & economies...

...so the timelines might be get a bit "speeded up" in these interesting times...

[Davis_X_Machina]

8. People's souls, much harder, and much slower to change...

....than their material circumstances, must change first.

[villager]

9. Well, a fateful chicken/egg moment certainly approaches...

n/t

[Davis_X_Machina]

10. A crisis is not always The Crisis...

...and there are more 1848's, and 1968's, than 1789's and 1939's.

We shall see.

[leftstreet]

14. ...

Solidarity in America? This is the Saudi Arabia of false consciousness -- world's largest reserves, world's largest production capacity.


Is that your quote?

It's wicked good

[Newest Reality]

11. Rethinking and eliminating

divisive issues that we might tend to believe would also help us to unite towards a new kind of victory.

What is the goal? How important is it? What are the divisive issues and prejudices that we my have had the luxury to afford?

When the necessity of the goal and its value becomes clear and strong enough, it is quite possible that more of us, (on any side of gender, race, politics, etc.) can more easily shed our skin and prioritize the nature of the impending revolutions in thinking and living that are now knocking at the door rather loudly.

[provis99]

12. won't happen here. Americans are thoroughly stuck in the peasant mentality.

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/04/14/americas-peasant-mentality/

[Scuba]

13. Good read. Thanks. I like Matt. nn/t