You Say We Need a Revolution?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/opinion/letters/left-wing-politics.html

Version 0 of 1.

To the Editor:

Re “The Left Is Remaking Politics,” by Amna A. Akbar (Sunday Review, July 12):

The folly and the purity of demands of abolishing the police and prisons, and enacting the Green New Deal and “cancel rent,” are reminiscent of the folly and the purity that exemplified the election of 2016.

Too many on the left couldn’t see the threat from reactionaries and so couldn’t support the flawed candidacy of Hillary Clinton. A tragic mistake that has led to numerous right-wing policy changes that have left working people and minorities vulnerable to the whims of the Trump nightmare.

Lessons learned? Not by a long shot. In fact, the current demands of this segment of the left only serve up softballs for the right wing to hit out of the park.

The only hope is that these demands will be seen by most progressives as the pie-in-the-sky demands that they surely are. Demands that only interfere with the hard work of reforming our institutions. Demands that the protesters see as “paths to revolution,” which in reality will lead to four more years of right-wing dominance.

Jim SalczynskiDetroit

To the Editor:

The problem is that these “revolutionaries” assume that the human condition is good and that if the working class rises in power, if police are eliminated because communities “care for one another,” the world will be a better place. As if crime will melt away because everyone really, really cares for his fellow human beings.

There is no mention of the importance of education first and foremost, which of course should be fair and equal. But revolution does not change the human condition (yes, wealth is distributed more fairly, for a while).

Wealth inequality still exists in France; the “elites” still rule. Russia is in effect a dictatorship. Both went through the upheavals of a revolution.

Countries that do share a greater sense of humanity, like the Netherlands and Denmark, still maintain a police force. Until there is real critical thinking on these matters, including accepting that education begins at home, there can be no social revolution.

Ellen ShireNew York

To the Editor:

As Watzlawick, Weakland and Fisch wrote in their classic book “Change,” a first-order change is a change in a system, but one that leaves the underlying structure of the system the same.

A second-order change is a change in the underlying structure of the system.

Amna A. Akbar’s article poignantly and beautifully demonstrates the need for second-order change in our political, social and economic structures (with their long history of capitalism, colonialism and systemic racism) in order to move toward “a more just future.”

Given climate change and climate injustice, I believe that we need divergent thinking and second-order change to have any future at all.

John TurtzLarchmont, N.Y.