> At 10:58 AM 7/23/01 -0700, Alec Ramsdell wrote:
>
> >Oh. Well. This is simply a rallying cry, it
> sounds
> >like to me. In drawing out the proverbial kernel
> of
> >truth to it, the point is not whether or how some
> >vaguely grouped and defined stratum of folk
> understand
> >politics (but could I read minds I would tell you).
> >The point is how class rhetoric might appear more
> >often to foster class consciousness as a kind of
> >political awareness, and to show the untidy reality
> of
> >class violence that culture and consciousness
> >industries, for instance, serve to hide or excuse.
> >That's my reading.
> >One could argue whether or not this disturbs the
> >status quo, but more protests are planned, and
> class
> >lines and language are a part of them.
> >
> >Alec
>
>
> i really don't understand the above all. i read it a
> few times but it's in
> an idiom that i'm not quite familiar with. that's
> not your fault, of
> course. so i need a little translation help.
>
Those who aren't "in politics," or who don't think of politics or themselves in terms of their class, may or may not recognize their interests in what Joe Golowka wrote. They may or may not think about the structural and physical violence at work in capitalism: most official culture doesn't encourage critique along these lines. But the use of class rhetoric could help open the way towards such recognition and critique. Indeed, it seems to have helped the anti-capitalist movement, even if only by getting non-political types to think, or at least see, in terms of *capitalism*, good or bad.
Alec
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