The Kids And The Cockers

The surviving socialist generation had no sufficient reason to expect that the new fellows should or would follow their lead. The fact that this may be very much to the disadvantage of the young activists, does not alter the character of our reasonable expectations. Also, a good part of what we would offer them they need like another hole in the head.

The simple fact of the matter is that we ourselves made the tradition unavailable. This was accomplished through strenuous intellectual effort; which unfortunately succeeded far beyond our worst fears. If some little smidgeon of the energy devoted to the pietistic tending of the Eternal Flame of Doctrinal Purity had, instead, gone into actual thought about the structure of American p...