Back in the early 70’s, I became radicalized in my political thinking. I hung around with the hippies, and particularly the folks who were protesting Viet Nam, etc. and stayed tuned in to the thinking of many on the far left. During those years I also spent a summer at the Sorbonne, which helped me gain perspective on how incredibly conservative the U.S. population really is. This perspective helped me to evaluate some of the really far left thinking and their tendency to be immovable in this insistence on every point, down to the pettiest, of their objectives being followed.
It didn’t take me long to weigh the general conservatism of the populace against the very Marxist thinking of the far left and to realize (a) as far as elections, no one was going to win an election based on a truly left-wing platform and (b) the deep hold the wealthy power elite has on politicians and policy means we’d really have to be prepared to plan and carry out a full scale revolution in order to shake off their power.
I was a history major and enough of a “history buff” to know a fair bit about the horrors that have generally accompanied revolution, so I was not prepared to jump on any bandwagon leading there. I’ve since come to believe we, as consumers, have a lot more economic power than we ever wield and there are potential answers for change if we unite to boycott, infiltrate boards, create alternative businesses, etc. But that’s a post for another day.
Periodically through all the 50+ years since I moved left I’ve noted the far-left folks unfailingly supporting candidates who will never win or deriding the ones who can and in general insisting their platform/ideas be implemented. But they never seem to have a realistic plan for how you would get out from under capitalism. In my opinion elections, in a country where too many politicians on both sides are owned by the rich, are not at all likely to create such an outcome. They also never seem to come to an understanding of how conservative most Americans are.
It’s not that I wouldn’t like to see a far more progressive swing in government. And I’m heartened by the embrace of far more progressive positions by larger numbers of Americans than before. But I’m pretty practical and, at core, since I know the real power is wielded behind the scenes and a big portion of the populace is quite moderate, I’ve always tried to work within the system to do what I could to nudge change along and voted for whichever candidate leaned a little more toward helping people than not.
A revolution or not? At some point, once you decide on a radical path and insist every bullet point on your platform must be followed, you also have to decide if you’re prepared to foment a revolution, whether violent or a transformative but peaceful reorganizing of the existing structures. Because hanging around shouting about your principles while voting for 3d parties or not voting just means the worst of the “no change” — or now the “let’s go backward” — politicians keep being elected.
Not Just Sassy on the Inside 