What revolution - progressive or demonic - every began as a majority
position? Christ with his 12, Castro with his 12, Jefferson & Co. with how
many. (I suspect the so-called Christian Coalition began with in '74 with
fewer than a dozen).
Or a poet's career? The good ones - and ones that last - probably start with
one serious reader/editor. Black Mountain College - that gave us so much
(Olson, Creeley, Duncan, let alone Raushenberg, Cage,) was hardly a majority
moment in the USA culture.
So I still don't understand what's going on or the gist of the gust here!
Stephen V
>> We are the electorate.
>
> No, you're not, and that's the problem. If you, the marchers, were
> coextensive with - or even substantially representative of - the
> electorate, then you wouldn't need to march.
>
> I didn't notice the March against Militarism (in about, ooh, 1992)
> having any noticeable effect on Militarism, which has been waxing
> mightily ever since. I suspect it was just another outing for the SWP
> and anyone they hadn't utterly fallen out with yet. Show-politics.
>
> I don't see how not joining in with something that could not have been
> expected to have any effect at all on the thing it was meant to oppose
> can be equated with condoning that thing. "Your refusal to join us in
> throwing custard pies at the Israeli embassy amounts to your condoning
> the actions of Jewish settlers in the occupied territories..."
>
> I do regret not participating in the one long-running campaign to
> close down the Campsfield refugee detention centre, as it seemed like
> the sort of thing where persistent pressure and highlighting of the
> wrongs done there might have had an effect. At least I didn't jeer at
> the people who were trying to organise it. But I certainly could have
> done more.
>
> I am very much more convinced by what I take to be Mark's argument
> that the real purpose of all this street-politics is to build
> coalitions, that its value lies not in its ability to effect immediate
> change but in its ability to bring people together into a cohesive
> political movement. Perhaps the truth is that you are not *yet* the
> electorate.
>
> Dominic
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