Re: [Marxism] re: New Orleans: "It's the system." - are we missing an opportu...

[Jscotlive@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 04/09/2005 06:37:41 GMT Daylight Time,  alam1@xxxxxxxxxxxx
writes:

It  would, really, not require much more than 10,000 people. Yet it is a
deplorable - no, extremely pathetic - fact that in a country of
300,000,000 people, socialists exist in perhaps a few grouplets of
1,000s, and that's all. How can our analysis resonate, apply, and ring
so true, and yet, we have absolutely nothing in terms of  numbers?



Reply:

I wouldn't underestimate the effectiveness of the US ruling class in
equating socialism with totalitariansm over the years. Also, the myth of the
American Dream combined with a nationalism that is instilled from day one at
kindergarten has helped to suffuse the American psyche with the notion, myopic  
in
the extreme, that the US really is the most democratic, freedom loving nation
on the face of the earth.

Since the turn of the last century socialism has failed to gain traction
with the US working class in a meaningful way. To be a socialist was to be  a
traitor, a pawn of the Soviet Union, and apart from a brief period during the
Vietnam war, the American masses have remained rigidly conformist and patriotic.
 Hopefully, with the continuing debacle in Iraq, and the shocking events in
New  Orleans, combined with a worsening economy, the extreme nature of this
admin  will provide the desperately needed catalyst for a rise in  consciousness
throughout US society.

The existing socialist organisations, parties and sects will continue to
piss against the wind without it.

J.
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