What happened here?

[encephalon]

I've been doing a lot of historical reading about social movements in the US lately, trying to figure out what went wrong here in the United States. While there are leftists here, they are few and far between.

By the time I was born (1980), the "new left" movement was virtually non-existent. Whereas there still are strong leftist movements beyond US borders, inside it's strangely devoid of a strong presence, especially in public. Just ten years before I was born, however, a strong movement did exist, and for a while looked at least semi-promising.

I think we truly need to figure out what happened here, and I don't imagine it's any single thing. Especially since the US is in its current global position, I find this extremely important, as defeating US imperialism will prove all the more difficult without a strong leftist movement inside. We need to know how leftist movements, throughout US history, have been systematically supressed very effectively, and how we can avoid this in the future. It is a serious problem for the world, not just the US.

I've read a few things that have given me clues about some of the factors that may have contributed, but I'm going to withold stating them for now to see if someone else brings them up. I'm especially eager to hear from veterans (not war veterans.. older folk that were actually conscious adults during the sixties, who took part in a lot of what I can only read about).. any ideas?

[Morpheus]

IMO, the biggest long term reason the US left is weaker than the European left is different racial divisions.

[LTBSRebel]

well, imho any movement should begin in the mind of the nation's children. And the suppresion of any movement begins the same place.
From their childhood, American children are forced to think that communism is something evil, often some product of the devil.
For most Americans it becomes so instinctive that when they think communist, the word evil is the first word that comes to mind (there were actually surveys to show this I think)

[encephalon]

The racial divisions, I think, do play a role in the inability of the left to continue a strong presence in the US for any lengthy period of time.. especially the separatist movements in particular (that goes for gender, too). That only weakens the left as a whole and isolates the seperatists.

And yes, childhood indoctrination plays a definite role.. but my main question is why there have been genuine and strong leftist movements here that have ultimately been pushed back under the rug by oppositional forces.. yes, indoctrination plays a role but if it played that large of a role the leftist movements wouldn't have gained momentum in the first place. There's something going on, I think, that kills every leftist movement that pops up here.. we need to address that. Something happens after it already comes to fruition. It did in the late 1800s, the depression era, and the 60s-70s.

Something's causing it to lose steam after only a decade or so, killing the whole "pass the torch" scheme that is required to sustain it..

[redstar2000]

Well, I went through it all, the rise and fall, etc.

My "quick-and-dirty" explanation is that a revolutionary left cannot really take root in the U.S. until U.S. imperialism suffers a number of serious and bloody defeats.

The "charisma of successful Empire" is incredibly effective at blinding people to their own real interests...and one or two defeats are clearly not enough to crack it.

The U.S. needs to be driven in disarray out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, etc., etc., etc. to utterly discredit the ruling class.

A major domestic economic crisis would help a lot as well.

Very few people desert a "winner"...and likewise, very few will defend a big loser.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[encephalon]

A major domestic economic crisis would help a lot as well.


As the depression? The leftist movements were smashed during that period as well.. It's happened throughout US history, in its economic ups and downs. Every other generation, a leftist movement gains momentum in the US, looks promising.. and disperses as the next generation comes along. It's like a political roller coaster.. If it were just a single movement that failed while the US was doing well, then I'd accept that it could be a case of "winner vs. loser"--but it's happened repeatedly. It's an identifiable pattern that I'm not sure is a simple case of taking the winning side.