Me too. Would that LP had waited to come down off the ceiling before responding to JW with substantive material.
There is a bigger point behind all this, on substance, not personalities. One source of disagreement on this list, among other places, is mirrored in depictions of the working class. In one depiction they are hungry, in hazardous occupations, living in Superfund sites, subject to random violence by police, etc. This is certainly true of many, and obviously is pervasive in other countries, but it is also completely foreign to many "1st world" workers' experiences.
For instance, my neighbor is an operating engineer who works a midnight shift, pays a mortgage on a house worth about $160,000 (roughly median in my county, which is a rich one), puts three kids though CAtholic school, and owns two cars, one a minivan. I have talked to many, many workers and seldom met any who were hungry. I'm not saying these people are the rule. I appreciate the data suggesting that a significant percentage of the population has problems obtaining food. But the better- off are not a thin 'aristocracy' either. And there will no left -- social-democratic or revolutionary -- without them.
It isn't clear which group could be most interested in left politics. Oppression does not strictly correlate with activism.
If I told my neighbor he was oppressed, he would conclude I was nuts. On the other hand, if I explained how he was being robbed by the powers that be, that his financial security was unnecessarily wanting, I believe he would be completely receptive.
Politics which depend on descriptions of extreme privation clearly have limited prospects among better-off workers. Nor are they likely to be impressed by predictions of doomsday. They will certainly be repelled by blanket accusations of racism, as well as by policies which threaten to redistribute their income to the poor.
Absent the coming of doomsday, left politics has be broad enough to appeal to this sort of person with the only thing that will work: a persuasive appeal to enlightened self-interest.
> . . .
>whatever group one doesn't like (e.g., Max doesn't like "sectarians" if I
remember correctly). . . .
Only sectarians who blow people up. Otherwise I don't dislike sectarians at all. Some have an interesting story to tell, and some are boring, like everyone else. I also respect a commitment that entails actually joining an organization, rather than endlessly bemoaning the lack of a revolutionary party to join.
It's sort of like bird-watching. ("Martha, look there's a red-breasted spotted Pabloite! See the Guevarist feathers on his tail?")
What I really hate is intolerance.
MBS