Re: The "Desirable and POSSIBLE" vs "BASTANTE!" (Was Iran...)

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Carrol wrote:
>Currently, the people here in the U.S. are not speaking--at least
>very loudly. That is the usual state affairs over the last 200
>years and nothing to get excited about. And because they are not
>speaking they *also* are not listening. And I mean that in the
>simplest most mechanical sense: Invent all the beautiful utopias
>or all the beautiful arguments for socialism you please. Put them
>in the most intelligible language you or anyone else can. Leaven
>them with the humor which Marxists are said to lack.
>
>No one will hear you. No one (except other committed socialists
>who don't need them) will even know you exist. As far as I know
>in the entire history of socialist struggle the only people who
>have listened (physically put themselves in the presence of)
>socialists are those who have already become socialists. (Those
>peasants in Hunan did eventually learn of the CPC and begin to
>listen to it -- but only after the CPC had finally gotten around
>to listening to them)

I agree with you on the main arguments of this post, but I'm wondering if
it may not be important for committed socialists to talk with other
committed socialists in a way that would "give hope and meaning to the
*Present*, which capitalism empties of meaning," as you say. What are the
places of art, fantasy, desire, 'strawberry & chocolate,' etc. in this
context: conversations among committed socialists? I think that this is a
question that has gendered implications.

Yoshie