By John Steppling
I’ve been trying to evaluate the left regards both Obama, and as it exists in the US today. I’ve read a lot of comments from various progressive blogs and web pages. They seem fairly representative of what the *far* left is saying. What it always says. It’s a profoundly cynical group, but also one stuck in a time warp. As early as the 1920s certain Marxists were complaining that European socialists were trying to initiate the Bolshevik model for revolution, and it wouldn’t work because conditions were different (i.e. Western Europe wasn’t feudal, the party wasn’t illegal, and there wasn’t a majority rural population, de centralized power, etc). They are also expressing something pretty obvious, and it relates to the hegemonic nature of today’s power structure. That said, there is something about the very accusation of *cynicism* against the left which tends toward a neutralizing effect. The vast marketing apparatus that is US politics these days makes all critique digestible and rendered into its opposite if need be.
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