jesusfookingchristalmighty
1. get off your ass and help poor women and others right now. that was one of my first statement. create alternative institutions. can't any one read? i was NOT expecting the state to take over and that was exactly my point in the first godamned place re the ehrenreich debate. the state isn't our friend here. so work on alternative institutions 2. it is very reasonable to try to get a uniform law passed for garnishing wages or at the very least make it *automatic* that it goes through the social service system, rather than direct payment. that would be very simple and a very effective way to get men to pay. when my ex was one day late paying his ex wife when we were married, the collection agency was on his ass the very next day. he was never late after the first time they embarassed him 3. work on wider social change as well 4. really put your hands and feet where you mouth is and go out there and take care of other people's children.
the two of you have a lot of nerve to call the above piddle and empty theorizing. this stuff can work. i did the sharing child care stuff when my kid was little. we formed a collective. then we decided to make a bigger community wide one in which people could pay full price or defray by contributing: legal assistance, meal making, cleaning, teaching, accounts, grant writing, computer skills, typing, etc. these things work. go out and do them. yes, i know, it sounds all third way. but you know what? i don't care if you do them while also fighting aginst third way nonsense you will have built the foudations for a better society because people will have been building the capacity for engaging in real collective enterprises in which they learn how to work to gether, to share burdens and joys of doing something together, they will know what it really takes and experiement so that we will create a ferment of people activiely shaping that very alternative world.
oh screw it. i have more fun arguing with ken about zizek.
all i know is that from all i've read on this list, i'm ashamed to call myself a marxist anymore. thank god for ken l, patrick, and mike yates because they give me hope that marxist also have a sense of integrity and outrage at injustice. and a sense that and i've called myself a marxist since i was 16 when i saw some goofy flik in social studies class and said to the teach, "hey what's wrong with that"
kelley
is this that difficult to follow. am i that bad a writer that you cannot figure this out? jesus. i sure hope someone was reading and understood. man.
At 07:18 PM 3/26/00 -0600, you wrote:
>Kelley,
>
>I'm overposted.
>
>The debates on this are (I have come to believe) almost exactly
>the same as those over "free speech for racism." I don't believe
>in free speech for racists, and I don't believe in fathers not
>helping to support their kids -- and in neither case is it either
>desirable *or politically possible* to get the law to do it for you.
>
>Do you have enough friends to beat your ex up? Or to put up
>a picket line outside his place of employment? Or to sit near
>him in restaurants talking loudly about what a creep he is?
>
>Your idea of getting the state to do it is as utopian as would
>be the request to wait for socialism to do it. You condemn
>one kind of daydreaming and substitute another.
>
>Those who say wait for socialism for women's liberation destroy
>the movement for socialism. Those who want the capitalist state
>to perform the functions of the socialist state come to treat
>enemies as friends -- and sabotage both the movement for
>socialism and the struggle for necessary reforms under capitalism.
>
>Make enough trouble for enough non-paying fathers (and for
>everyone else concerned) and Fathers Rights Groups will be
>demanding an effective CSE. Campaign for an effective CSE
>and nothing will happen except to reinforce the rhetoric of those
>who blame women. And if you don't have the strength to do
>the former, you certainly dont' have the strength to do the
>latter.
>
>The principle is, don't fight for reforms that can only be won
>if one is strong enough to get something even better. It only
>leads to piddle and empty theorizing.
>
>Carrol
>
>