It can't happen here

[Mervyn Hartwig <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gary MacLennan wrote:

>Do you have a copy of that doco, Mervyn??  the thing that particularly
>disturbed me is the argument if there is a protracted war then democracy as
>we know it will die.  Well the first is given.

[snip]

>Yet something of Roy Bhaskar's optimism has rubbed off on me. I don't
>believe that humanity wants unending war as its future and its
>destiny.

I didn't take a copy unfortunately. I guess you could get it from
Channel 4: Friday 28th March 7.45pm *J'Accuse*. Blurb: *Gary Yonge, New
York Correspondent of the Guardian, is worried about the new
McCarthyite-style hostility in America to anti-war voices being heard.*
(15 min). I guess he was saying that there's a big danger that democracy
will die if the war/wars is/are protracted and messy, rather than that
it definitely will. I share your optimism and Bhaskar's. *Concrete
utopianism (not pessimism) of the intellect, optimism of the will!* I
think that over the coming years there's a real historical opportunity
for systems change - better than anything since 1917. The once actually
existing socialist rival to capitalism no longer exists, so now there's
only fundamentally one system of oppression world wide and it's the
slaves versus the masters everywhere. The dynamics of capitalism are
generating the immiseration of people on a historically unprecedented
scale, and driving us all in the direction of another (quite possibly
nuclear) world war and ecological catastrophe. You're right, people
don't want this, they're increasingly coming to see through the lie on
which capitalism is founded, and the lies which prop it up, and to have
confidence in their own powers to build something better. And yes, the
Net etc bring new possibilities. (Re lies: some wit came up with 'blair
faced liar'. Not bad, eh?)

Still, the danger Yonge points to is very real - it will materialize
unless prevented, and that's up to us all. The working class aren't
going to prevent it on our behalf or act as our saviours - that's a
substitutionist myth. There's no longer any priveleged agent of change.
It's up to us all. As Bhaskar says, *There's only one point at which you
can change society, and that's you and your actions.* (This doesn't mean
that we don't work and learn together. My action directed at changing
the world can only become effective in and through other people.)

Best wishes,

Mervyn