tobacco and political money

Carrol Cox cbcox at mail.ilstu.edu
Wed Dec 23 13:49:08 PST 1998


This debate over the role of tobacco in u.s. politics would be (perhaps is mostly) harmless fun, with not much riding on it, except that a lot of bad would-be marxist politics (from many varieties of maoism through the most abject reformism) ground their politics in the myth of serious splits within the u.s. ruling class, and such arguments as these may be used to argue for such positions. A communist group I belonged to in the late 80s began its slippage into oblivion with such a search, supporting Dinkins in New York and even beginning to argue that Mayor Daley represented the "progressive bourgeoisie" (whatever such a beast would be). The last I knew of some of its remnants they were supporting Clinton in '92 because they were "tired of being on the losing side"!!!

I do not apply the label "abject" to "reformism," unless the reformist in question claims to be a marxist.

Carrol



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