>On Behalf Of Max Sawicky
>
> NN continues to conflate anti-bureaucrat
> with anti-worker, using the highly
> ungeneralizable example of Cockburn.
> And he sez labor-oriented activists of
> the 60's (which ended in about 1973)
> saw workers abstractly and in ultimatist
> terms, rather than being sensitive to
> bread and butter issues. Utter nonsense.
> Some approached workers on bread-and-butter
> terms, others w/a marxist message, but the
> key difference is that these people WENT
> OFF CAMPUS. They did not remain in the
> comfortable social confines of student
> activism.
Well, glad I tweaked the geezers -- not that I count as a young-un either at this point -- but I've acknowledged the variety, but also highlighted the broader message given out by the organized left and progressives of the period. Not just in the media but in statements ranging from the Port Huron Statement to Chicago 1968 to the Days of Rage to other publications of various groups, there was an unmistakable looking away from union concerns as less important or even reactionary in many cases. Some of the analysis in the context even made sense, but to argue that the 60s left was marching in sync with hardhat unionists is just a rewriting of history. Sure there were a number of good efforts in student-labor solidarity and I would bet Max was in them, but I think he is inflating his own experience in a way that distorts the tensions of the period.
As he distorts the activism of today's campus labor folks; yes, the antisweatshop folks have been spending a good bit of time fighting to change the labor standards of campus clothing licensing. If you looked at the dollar figures on how much clothing production those codes would cover, you'd understand why UNITE wants them fighting on campus where the students have some leverage. That said, a large number of those activists get off campus quite often to walk picket lines and support labor organizing. There are a number of Student Labor Action Coalition chapters (and groups using other names) that have been quite prominent in community labor struggles.
> I think the radicalism of the 60's
> compared to today makes some of you
> young'uns uncomfortable. You magnify
> the aberrant and negative aspects, of
> which there were many, discount
> the positive, and sound like a
> reincarnation of the YPSL.
Not me. Some of my favorite people were activists in that era and I admire the dedication. I just said I thought there were also dramatic failures that in the bath of nostalgia, a lot of 60s folks don't want to acknowledge. And I find the continual discounting of activism today under much tougher economic circumstances to be abhorrent.
> I would also hazard the guess that
> another difference is that the 60's lefts thought in terms of a
> change of life, not how to manage their
> progressive concerns in a practical way.
> There was the expectation, however foolish, of some actual break
> in history, of an imminent conjuncture with extraordinary
> possibilities. It was the greatest thing that almost happened.
> This helps to explain why we talk about it ad nauseum.
What "almost happened"? In 1965, as the New Left was just taking off in the wake of the civil rights movement, some of the most important social legislation of the era was being passed. That was the peak. By the time the New Left was at its height of strength by 1968-1972 (pick your year), Reagan was governor and Nixon was President and progressive power was retreating. Corporations were emboldened to launch the neoliberal assault of the 1970s. Whatever the attitudes of the activists, the results were abyssmal.
As for the disdain of managing "progressive concerns in a practical way", what kinds of privilege does it imply to avoid some degree of practicality. Back in 1970, starting salaries were 80% of the median wage. Today, they are down to 60%, while the minimum wage in real terms is lower. Tuition was free at most public universities, while today's students leave school with a mammoth rotting pile of debt. The fucked up structure of the economy means that many activists, especially activists of color and others who are often the first person in their family to get to college, have economic responsibilities that are inescapeable.
None of this means today's young activists are looking to get rich, but they are trying to figure out how to survive in an economy that is punishing to those who don't watch their economic back. For all your denial of an antiworkerist attitude, the disdain for managing "practical" concerns is largely that, since unions are in one sense all about helping people manage their lives for those practical matters.
Personally, I've taken full advantage of privileges I've had to be a frenetic activist living on very little for well over a decade. But a lot of folks who I consider absolutely dedicated activists don't have the same privilege, so I measure their dedication by what is possible for them, not for me.
And if you highlight the "foolish" expectations of the 60s era, that's what I criticize. And I get accused of being a conservative, yet I am only conservative on tactics and strategy because I think those foolish expectations - what a number of friends from the era call their "collective insanity" - were of great destructiveness to the movement, since it made people attack any tactical compromise and any lesser good as the enemy, since the "real" revolution was just around the corner. On any substantive issue, I am as radical as anyone out there, but I find tactical self-delusion to be one of the worst political diseases -- and the infection stems largely from the 60s, which is part of my admittedly overstated criticism. Younger activists combine both idealism with tactical practicality, which is one reason why I appreciate them so much.
-- Nathan Newman