General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Does this atmosphere, this feeling in the air, remind you any of the late Sixties...? [View all]socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)circa 1915/16. Yet a bare 2 years later...
V.I. Lenin said (paraphrasing), "Sometimes years go by with nothing much happening. Then sometimes years go by in months." All it would take is a little more pressure on the middle who aren't paying a lot of attention yet to WHY their situation is changing for the worse, they just know that their circumstances ARE changing for the worse. And it's not going to get better for them because the ruling class won't LET it get better for them. When it gets bad enough, all it would take is a spark.
I disagree with nadin somewhat about being in a pre-revolutionary situation. I think we're halfway to that pre-revolutionary situation, but not all the way. The basics of a pre-revolutionary situation is where both the rulers and the ruled find themselves in a situation where they CANNOT and WILL not go on as before. The rulers find themselves unable to rule like they have before, i.e., behind the scenes by propagandizing the masses into giving them their way and now they have to be more blatant about their (mis)rule. CLOSER to fascist, but of course, still not there. Yet. The masses are the ones who are lagging as of now. They still hold some tattered beliefs in what they've been indoctrinated with, but those beliefs are rapidly being undermined by the very system they're indoctrinated to believe in. We'll be in a pre-revolutionary situation when the people finally lose their belief that all they need to "make it" under capitalism is hard work. That day of disillusionment is rapidly approaching because the system itself in in it's end stages.