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I've heard some ridiculously pessimistic views, like it happening 50 years from now, sorry, I don't think so :lol:
50 years is pessimistic to you?
Not trying to rain on your parade or anything, but think about the sixties - the protests, the mass movements. I'm sure if the revolutionary left had been asked in the sixties when they thought the revolution would be, they'd say "any day now". But 50 years later, no revolution. In fact, not even any mass movements, really. The revolutionary left, since the sixties, has regressed to a nearly-inaudible murmur. I'd wager that, probably in the entire history of the American revolutionary left, now is the time when it is at its weakest. And this is not me being pessimistic, I have no interest in pessimism - this is, in my view, a very levelheaded evaluation of the situation. To me, the suggestion that a revolution will occur in 50 years is optimistic, but five to ten... that just seems like the voice of mania.
In all honesty, I'm just baffled how one could possibly think, circumstances being as they are on the left, that a revolution might occur in five to ten years..? What is the logic behind this?
To use this analogy again, I feel like the revolutionary left in America is behaving with regard to "the inevitable revolution" like the fundamentalist Christians behave with regard to "the inevitable second coming". Like we are in the "end times" or something, and we can just wait it out because the whole thing is gonna come crashing down on its own any time now.
I just don't think its that simple. Not at all. I don't think things
just happen, I think
we have to
cause them to happen. That for us to practically consider even the slightest possibility that we may live to witness anything close to the early stages of revolution, we need to at the very least have built up a respectable working class movement - and such a movement does not presently exist. Again, most of the population doesn't even seem to be aware that the revolutionary left
exists. So, clearly, our perceptions of the state of the country's revolutionary left are on polar opposite sides of the spectrum.
And if any of what I'm saying is coming across as arrogant or condescending, I am not intending it that way
at all, I am just honestly very surprised by your thoughts on this.
My question, then, is what makes you think that the revolutionary left, the working class, and the population at large are presently (or very soon to be) in any position to bring about revolution? What do you see the broader proletariat doing that convinces you that they're organized, with revolutionary-consciousness, preparing to usher in an imminent revolution?
I just don't see it. At all.:confused: