alex types:
>Shit.
ditto.
>Needless to say, I was FURIOUS. If anybody is guilty of lacking
>structural analyses, it's misanthropic Greens and Pacifists who I suspect
>don't really give a shit about the human race, or at least the part of it
>that has to work for a living.
ever listened to 'earth crisis' adherents? they truly believe that humans are inferior to nature. humans have the capacity for reason and freedom and so choose to destroy the innocent earth. they sound like damn abortion opponents: unborn babies are innocent and abortion is murder; abortion doctors are not innocent and so killing them is justified.
>
>My criticism of working class boneheads notwithstanding, I'll go to the
>mat to defend my brothers against pseudo-radicals who think they can
>solve the problems of the world with candle light vigils and Working
>Assets phone service.
>
heh. i'd be pissed too. altogether too familiar with this one and it *is* disheartening. but what did you think of what i'd typed earlier, if you read it of course, about critical theory/practice being about 'the self-clarification of the struggles and wishes of the age' [marx in a letter to arnold ruge]. he argues there that 'we' need to start where people are and criticism ought to be about clarifying the struggles that people think are important. contrary to those who, at the time, claimed that socialists shouldn't get involved in this struggles because they were simply about bourgeois politics and/or about bourgeois theory, marx actually argued that socialists had to get down and dirty, they had to take sides. he rejected those socialists who advocated political purity: "This does not mean that we shall confront the world with new doctrinaire principles and proclaim: here is the truth, on your knees before it....Abandon your struggles, they are mere folly; let us provide you with the true campaign-slogans.... [instead] our programme must be: the reform of consciousness not through dogmas but by analyzing mystical consciousness obscure to itself, whether it appear in religious or political form."
look, alex, i was arrested not too long ago because i have an asshole neighbor who is annoyed by the slightest bit of noise. because the cops wouldn't fine me for a noise violation--coz there was no noise violation going on!--then he decided to tell them he suspected me of child abuse and smoking pot. totally illegal to do this and he actually admitted that he lied in front of the apt complex mgmt! my neighbor and the cops are getting their asses sued b/c the sizzlean busted into my house illegally and searched twice and when i got uppity and escorted the guy to the door b/c they were in my house illegally, they busted me for battery on a l.e.o. [law enforcement officer]. had no idea why i was being arrested at 7;30 pm and still no idea at 1 a.m. none of the guards in the jail would tell me why so i decided to start raising a little hell, particularly after i watched a parade of 10 or so women being escorted into their cells around 12:30. i started clamoring about the constitution, about rights, about civil disobedience, about spending more money on prisons than on schools, about the drug war as the war on the poor, about how clinton ought to be in jail because of the bombing and not us godamnit and isn't this just the way they want it, prison guards against prisoners so we don't see who the real friggin enemy is. and it was right there--the drug war, intra-class warfare, and the schools--that these women, most of whom i discovered the next morning had kids which was obvious to me for some reason, got a little rebellious too and started cheering me on as i preached for a fuckin' hour trying to get those damn guards to tell me why the hell i was in jail. [dumb chick that i am, i had no idea that you aren't supposed to lay a finger on a cop, hell you can get busted for pointing at them; thankfully, the fact is, they were in my house illegally to begin with so they were no longer cops but ordinary joe sixpack citizens and i could escort them out in most any way i chose]. anyway, take it with a grain of salt because a lot of them were drunk or high or just plain bored and scared, but there it was: the capacity for acknowledging that something's happening here and what it is ain't exactly clear, but when someone starts making it a little more clear it resonates with what they half-consciously know already: the answers that the right and conventional politics gives them aren't the solution. but, as others have said on this thread already, there has to be some coherent alternative. so, you know, we need to do that theoretical, critical, and practical work. working within a poor community in a neighborhood watch program might be a start. sure, neighborhood watches are seemingly an adjunct to the police force. but, on the other hand, in a neighborhood like the one i live in, the police ain't exactly officer friendly. so, neighborhood watch is also about keeping an eye on the cops.
dunno. it's all very difficult to figure out where best to spend your energies, but i think trying is worthwhile and no one says you have to stay involved in something if it proves futile or it is clear that it's just not worth it.
as for what you're talking about, i'm not saying it's easy to engage in these struggles and work along side ppl who think that subscribing to working assets and refusing to buy coors is some sort of substitute for left political struggles. i think there was something to what michael moore had to say about lefties, tho i surely don't think that we need to spend more time bowling with workers in some sort of patronizing way. but you've captured moore's complaint right here in this post, this intra-class struggle that manifests itself in a kind of identity politics in which people are sorted out by the things they buy, the products they boycott, the clothes they wear, the cars they drive, the books on their shelves and the magazines in their mailbox. so, yeah, the politics you describe are pathetic, but at least there's something there that 'we' can work with. it ain't easy. but i don't think anyone ever said it was.
kelley