"The Big One"

Louis Proyect lnp3 at panix.com
Sun May 17 15:42:53 PDT 1998


Rich Gipson:
>. Dozens of peoiple went to jail, hundreds were
>involved in actions against the government and the companies. Moore was
>there, stood on the sides and chuckled, promoted his little local paper,
>used his friends, and split.

Look, dozens of people went to jail in the P9 struggle, Arizona copper miners, Greyhound, Detroit newspapers, and a hundred other bitter strikes that I can't remember. The point is that they all lost. Moore has never represented himself as a trade union leader. He is a radical journalist who directs the class hatred of his audience at the bosses. In the world of American trade union politics, this perspective does not exist. Sweeny's better than the old regime, but it's still the same old shit basically. Looking at things from the perspective of company and worker together, support for the Democratic party, economic nationalism, etc. What people like Michael Moore represent is the sole presence of a working-class outlook in the corporate-controlled media. Labor Notes is all well and good, but millions of people who watched TV Nation got an education about how class society works. You think that people "know this already." This no doubt explains how puny and insignificant the socialist movement is in the United States.


> Yup, it is the nineties, and like every decade before it, class struggle
>is afoot. The problem isnt that there isn't any "real resistance". At least
>part of the problem is that people remain convinced that they cannot
>understand and change their lives, that they must rely on someone else to
>analyze their situations and chart the course, that they cannot win. What
>does Moore contribute to change that?

Moore is an entertainer. You don't seem to get this. He belongs to the tradition of Mark Twain, Will Rogers and Charlie Chaplin. If you want him to do the job of people like Michael Yates and Kim Moody, then let them tell jokes. What do you say, Mike?

Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)



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