>>My main point was that sympathy for
>>the poor, Third World or domestic,
>>can be and often is less radical
>>and more congenial to the status
>>quo than a pro-labor stance. The
>>reverse seems less true, but PEN-L
>>and LBO-Talk are not dominated by the
>>latter phenomenon.
>>
>
>I would agree that it does seem easier to find people around San Francisco
>who are sympathetic with those working for Nike in Vietnam (or spotted
>owls) then people who are sympathetic with poor single mothers or unskilled
>workers recently immigrated from Mexico...
>
>Why this is I am not sure...
For the same reason the Dinkins administration in New York City made lots of noise about opposing apartheid, while cutting the budget (except for subsidies to financiers & developers) - it's a lot easier to be brave where you have nothing really at stake.
But that's not relevant to the discourse on this list, or PEN-L. Few if any of us are hostile to "labor," though my admiration of the AFL-CIO (or, not to be provincial about it, the TGWU and the ICFTU) is less than unalloyed. (Speaking of which, John Sweeney sent Bill Clinton a telegram the day before he signed the welfare bill, right? Did he do anything more than that?) And few of us indulge in mere "sympathy for the poor," which would just be empty philanthropic liberalism. The "poor" and "labor" generally sink or swim together.
Max, I'm looking forward to your definition of class, since I can't understand why you keep insisting on these either/or distinctions.
Doug