Anniversary

JBrown72073 at cs.com JBrown72073 at cs.com
Thu Sep 19 13:06:04 PDT 2002


Bill Bartlett wrote:
>...But of course the citizens of NYC aren't responsible for US foreign
>policy, it is American citizens collectively. Working class citizens are
>entitled a vote too I gather.

Roughly speaking, the lower your income, the less likely you are to vote in the U.S. The bottom 50%, in general, don't vote here. Also, those who did manage to vote in the last election voted for Gore and Nader in significantly larger numbers than voted for Bush.


>...There you have it. The moral burden is on the American public. All I'm
>saying is that it serves no purpose to pretend that US citizens and voters
>have no responsibility for failing to shoulder the burden. Being a citizen
>of a democracy has responsibilities, not only rights. But if Americas fail
>to meet their responsibilities, they deserve to suffer the consequences.

I'm not sure how the static categories of blame, responsibility, and culpability further the project of changing such. I'm familiar with Chomsky's organize-by-guilt statements and they just don't do anything for me. I became a radical learning how I was not free (as a woman) and trying to change that. Only then did I start to see a true common interest with other oppressed people--that my liberation is tied up with theirs, in reality, not just rhetorically. This is as opposed to my earlier do-gooder, help the poor 'other' politics.

Jenny Brown



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