Paul Street, your command of rhetoric is superb, even endearing. I must take exception however. The existential question you manage to avoid is “if not this, then what”. I live in France and am six years past the “legal” U.S. retirement age. The Frech have a saying « le travail c’est la santé » and I wonder if that is not just another social construct. . .
What would you do if you did not work, or use your gift for language and culture to raise consciousness?
For my part, I live in an inhabitable exception to the universal void. I am governed by the laws of physics and thermodynamics and consciously seek to avoid any ideological inflation of my self-worth.
Sorry.
Your essay was an especially good read, and I fully share your view that we are “stuck in the ditch with an archaic slaveowner’s’ constitution”.
As it used to be said, I hope you will keep on trucking.
The present period is one where it's hard for people to imagine getting rid of capitalism. This derives from the low levels of action and organization of resistance. I'm not saying it doesn't exist.
This tends to lead those with socialist leanings towards electoral politics. Though disruption occurs in Europe, as with the recent strikes in Britain and France, the revolutionary left in its various anarchist and Marxist forms seems to barely exist.
Here in the USA this situation is reflected in the dominance of Democratic Socialists of America on the left. This leads to questions about the way small numbers of radicals can help to change the situation and change the debate.
As far as I can determine, this is just a middle class protest to protect middle class advantages -- not a "People's uprising." Such protests periodically come and go. We've been watching Western capitalism slowly collapsing for some years now, and protecting the more fortunate is not a top concern among the masses.
At 87 with a wonky heart I would make a piss poor revolutionary, but I can at least share the gospel according to Street with others. 🙏
Nuclear weapons are chemical weapons. Is capitalism a weapon?
Paul Street, your command of rhetoric is superb, even endearing. I must take exception however. The existential question you manage to avoid is “if not this, then what”. I live in France and am six years past the “legal” U.S. retirement age. The Frech have a saying « le travail c’est la santé » and I wonder if that is not just another social construct. . .
What would you do if you did not work, or use your gift for language and culture to raise consciousness?
For my part, I live in an inhabitable exception to the universal void. I am governed by the laws of physics and thermodynamics and consciously seek to avoid any ideological inflation of my self-worth.
Sorry.
Your essay was an especially good read, and I fully share your view that we are “stuck in the ditch with an archaic slaveowner’s’ constitution”.
As it used to be said, I hope you will keep on trucking.
The present period is one where it's hard for people to imagine getting rid of capitalism. This derives from the low levels of action and organization of resistance. I'm not saying it doesn't exist.
This tends to lead those with socialist leanings towards electoral politics. Though disruption occurs in Europe, as with the recent strikes in Britain and France, the revolutionary left in its various anarchist and Marxist forms seems to barely exist.
Here in the USA this situation is reflected in the dominance of Democratic Socialists of America on the left. This leads to questions about the way small numbers of radicals can help to change the situation and change the debate.
As far as I can determine, this is just a middle class protest to protect middle class advantages -- not a "People's uprising." Such protests periodically come and go. We've been watching Western capitalism slowly collapsing for some years now, and protecting the more fortunate is not a top concern among the masses.
How abour one year. Would that resolve the issue.
Liberty egalite fraternite
If it were only so