Re: Plumbing, consciousness & soc.dem.

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

I have little to add to Gary Mongiovi's excellent posting on ideology and
plumbing except this. He wondered why the right had been so successful in
selling a bill of goods over the last 20 years. Two answers relevant to
this discussion, though obviously many more could be summoned: 1) they
appropriated a lot of historically leftist language about revolution,
freedom, justice, and progress, ana managed to paint the left as
protectionist, cowardly, and backward looking - there was nothing
technocratic about it; and 2) lefties lived up to this by retreating,
compromising on fundamental issues, and looking generally tired and
pathetic. Now the reality of two decades of right-wing ascendancy has
nothing to do with revolution, freedom, justice and progress; we've seen
a polarization and destruction on a par with 19C capitalism at its
rawest. Objectively speaking, as we used to say, this should be fertile
ground for left agitation, shouldn't it?

Doug

Doug Henwood [dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx]
Left Business Observer
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