Re: Damn Dams

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect wrote:

> Sam, we are not in the business of figuring out how to manage the
> capitalist system. "Under present circumstances" our only obligation is to
> point out the irrationality of how hydroelectric dams are being used.

No, not quite. This makes politics sound too much like a scholastic
debating society. Under present circumstances our main, pehaps
our only, obligation is to figure out ways of mobilizing audiences
to listen to our demonstrations of irrationality -- which can only
mean audiences that listen primarily because they have committed
themselves to explaining that irrationality to others. It is entirely
possible that that task depends on contingencies that we can
do little to bring about: From the beginning to the end of his
life Lenin focused more on *recognizing* opportunities than
on creating them. That is why the best commentary on Lenin
ever written is a work that does not even mention him: Mao's
Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan.

Carrol