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• Friday, December 5, 2008 10:47 AM

  @Ché Pasa

  Trouble is that these specifics that have been cited here and elsewhere over and over and over again are not "enough" for those who question the call to action. What I'm saying is that nothing is enough to satisfy the skeptics of direct action, no litany of specifics will satisfy them. It's a game. The brass ring is always out of reach.

  I find all this highly analogous to the people that are pushing third party candidacies like Ralph Nader at the top of the ticket without building a party at the school committee level. It doesn't start at the beginning, and then wonders why there is no broad based support. And I say that as someone who does engage in some protests, does get on the phone, does go to rallies, and does do advocacy and try to take action.

  Crane Brinton's 4 stages of revolution start not with the Paris Commune, but with the leafleting stage. In that stage, the only support base is the intelligensia, and the goal is to disseminate information about both the agenda and, more importantly, about the list of social wrongs. I don't see how the blogosphere isn't that form of leafleting? (grrrrhhh, I'm really sick of spellcheckers that conform to Microsoft Standard Spelling of no double consonants before -ing!)

  For that matter, Brinton's stages correspond well to the more successful Reagan Revolution: We are now in the Thermidorian reaction, the return to center, after the reign of terror, when the excesses of the revolution cause destruction of society that force the population to react against them and their leaders. The biggest question is, where will the center be?

  So if you are trying to foment a revolution, peaceful or otherwise, you haven't finished stage one unless your leafleting has caused broad popular support, and you can't jump ahead to the Paris Commune, even though you'd like to get ourselves back to the garden. Concentrate on educating the million year old carbon, first.

  —ondelette Read ondelette's other letters
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