Philosopher Grace Lee Boggs and Sociologist, Monthly Review Editor John Bellamy Foster on the Financ

[CHIMO]

Philosopher Grace Lee Boggs and Sociologist, Monthly Review Editor John Bellamy Foster on the Financial Meltdown, Social Change and Redefining Democracy

GRACE LEE BOGGS: Well, I think we’re in a time of great hope and great danger. I think that the danger is largely underestimated. I think that at a time when thousands of people descend on Washington saying we want our country back and calling, denouncing Obama as a socialist, that it has become very important for us not to talk about a recovery, but to talk about how do we create a new society of hope.

And I think that’s why Monthly Review is so important, because it’s been for six years trying to create an independent approach to socialism that is not bogged down in ideas that come from the nineteenth century or from the 1917 revolution.

And I think that the only answer to the counterrevolution, which Bertha Lewis and others are trying to defend ourselves against, is to begin creating a new concept of hope, not to talk about recovery. We don’t need to go back to a society that is concentrated on economic growth, that dehumanizes us, that makes us consumers only and is threatening all life on this planet. We need to be thinking about something new.

And we need to have a deeper appreciation of the witch hunts that are taking place, and that—Van Jones and Bertha Lewis, and understand that these are taking place at a time of great danger to the powers that be, that the powers that be have lost two wars, that the situation is much more comparable to that of Germany in the ’30s than to anything that the American people have experienced up to now.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/17/philosopher_grace_lee_boggs_and_sociologist
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2009/sept/video/dnB20090917a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=00:41:00

[bertman]

1. The hope creation meme is getting a bit threadbare, Ms. Boggs. But I do agree with the

1930's Germany analogy.

[scarletwoman]

2. Except when SHE says "hope", she actually means something real. (nt)