Wojtek writes:
>That, BTW, reminds me about the Rutgers President Lawrence making racist
>comments a few years ago. This sparked a massive protest action whose
>momentum has been utterly lost as soon as Black activists told the whites
>"it's a black issue, please stay out of it." Not only did Lawrence survive
> (even though the NJ Governor Whitman intially refused to defend him), but
>nothing was gained in terms of programs aimed at minorities at Rutgers.
>Yet another example of id politics serving as a career spingboard for the
>leaders while leaving everyone else behind.
I proudly proclaim myself a 'left conservative' because I refuse to accept I can't enjoy a relationship of mutual trust, understanding, support and comradeship in struggle with 'the other' - from go to woe.
Where one's politics is based on one's identity, defined such that all not sharing commonality on that given criterion are deemed a priori incommensurably other (or even an a priori enemy), one is militating against the one thing the world's oppressed have going for them: their potential might in solidarity.
Everyone is oppressed, to differing degrees and in different ways - but those degrees and ways will remain until we find (a) criteria we share and (b) modes of organisation and procedure that allow us to voice our particular concerns and have them explicitly incorporated in an integrated and continual transformational programme.
United we stand, divided we fall (further).
Easy.
Rob.