Many activists don't want to hear about some grand narrative, one that could unify all of our struggles. … - Michael Yates

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I know now: I do not hope for anything. I do not fear anything, I have freed myself from both the mind and the heart, I have mounted much higher, I am free.

Michael Yates

Many activists don't want to hear about some grand narrative, one that could unify all of our struggles. So the major issue that needs to be addressed is how to get people to see that there is indeed a grand narrative which just happens to be true.

Addressed, Issues, Narrative, People, Struggle

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I am sure that the experience of growing up in the heart of the working class and learning from my parents, and especially from my grandmother (who also worked on a barge boat as a cook and a servant for rich folks in Manhattan, Newport, Grosse Point, and Sewickley, all havens of the very rich), that life was not especially fair and always full of bad possibilities, helped shape my future take on life. Then what really transformed my thinking was the war in Vietnam and trying to be a good teacher.

Growing Up, Helped, Newport, Servant, Teacher, War

Capitalism is a powerful producer of output, crisis-mongering on the left notwithstanding, and this too makes the system seem to have a lot of promise. This is why it is so important to agitate against the system in good times and bad. We can't depend on some super crisis to get folks thinking but instead have to focus on all of the contradictions of the system which cannot be ultimately resolved by it.

Against, Focus, Powerful, System, Thinking, Ultimately

The system has a way of convincing people that because they live in the USA they are better off than all other people in the world. This gets them focused on the wrong things, of course, but it has been a tried and true way of deflecting class struggle, something I don't think Marx didn't fully anticipated. The education system, and the whole culture really, has a lot to do with how these feelings are transmitted to each new generation. When parents say their kids were heroes when they died for nothing in Iraq, you can see the power of this.

Fully, Generation, Hero, Kids, Say, Struggle

Without an understanding of the issue of race and a willingness to confront it head on, the working class will not build its strength.

Class, Confront, Issue, Issues, Race, Strength

Most young people are or will soon enough be workers. They can help to energize and radicalize the workers' movement. And what revolution has ever succeeded without youth?

Energize, Movement, People, Soon Enough, Succeeded, Youth