gentrification

Carl Remick cremick at rlmnet.com
Thu Aug 19 12:37:32 PDT 1999



> Another example of a left fetish is death
> penalty. Opposing it made a lot of sense for the Left in the
> time of Sacco
> and Vanzetti - but today this issue is mostly a shibboleth, a
> spirit of the
> past struggle Marx talks about in the "18th brummaire" -
> which at best has
> a marginal significance for the working class, but at worst
> alienates left
> activists from working class who see this position as being
> 'soft on crime'
> (rememeber that crime disproportionally affects the poor and the
> minorities).

I see opposition to the death penalty as neither fetish nor shibboleth but as a core value the left must affirm. The idea that the left must accept capital punishment to avoid alienating working-class activists sounds suspiciously like Bill Clinton's willingness to execute a retarded man simply to ingratiate himself with voters. Whatever happened to consciousness-raising?

Carl



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list