Friday, July 5, 2013

Unpopular Essays

That was the title of a collection of essays by Bertrand Russell. (The archives of whom are for some lucky reason, stored at McMaster University in my home town of Hamilton, Ontario.)

I think it's also a good title for my blog posts about leftist failure and irrelevance. I used to get lots of applause for my fire and brimstone and damnation jeremiads but not so much for my constant harping about how our tactics on the left are brain-dead and useless.

That having been said, I think there's more value in trying to change my team with my essays, rather than the enemies' attitudes.

ETA:

I'm not commenting as often as I do on other people's blogs. But rest assured, your work is being appreciated. I often post links to posts I like on my Facebook page.

3 comments:

Purple library guy said...

Well, I don't have much to say about your "unpopular essays" so I haven't. I don't disagree, but I'm damned if I see a plausible way of fixing it.
A new party? There are new parties. They get nowhere. And if they got somewhere, they'd just split the vote anyway.
A new Waffle? Maybe. But to get anywhere, and present a real alternative, it would need to be connected to a strong grassroots progressive movement of some sort.

. . . Um, yeah. Grassroots progressive movements in Canada (well, outside Quebec) are about as marginal as in the States, which is to say completely.

So it's a problem. If the people start moving maybe us wannabe-vanguards might have a chance to jump out in front. ;)

Owen Gray said...

I think it's worth remembering the old saw about governments defeating themselves, thwap.

The Harper government is beginning to look, old, tired and cranky. If progressives can take advantage of that perception, they will change things.

thwap said...

Owen,

I think the results of US defeating harper would be more enduring than if he simply defeats himself with scandals.