so is being a woman, being queer, or being an animal, etc... what's the difference?
> 2) I regard the struggles of and for human beings as being inherently
> more important than those on behalf of plants or animals. While I'm
> against cruelty to animals I don't believe they are or can be
> possessed of rights. One must be a rational being, actuallly or
> potentially, to have rights. Call me an anthropo-chauvinist. I plead
> guilty!
but you fail to explain why your chauvinism is justified: why do human beings (putting aside rational: it seems to me animals do act rationally) possess rights?
even if you were to rank human suffering as more important than that of animals, you can still weight for the scale of the horrors: 1) a worker getting screwed by his bosses. 2) a newborn baby chick being thrown alive into a grinder that crushes it to death.
> 3) No, I don't think the class struggle is one among many (for gender
> eqaulity, gay rights etc) I think it's more fundamental because I
> believe the expoitation of the working class by the capitalist class
> is the basis of our entire society, while special oppressions, though
> hideous, are not.
but society is not a unitarily defined/experienced thing, is it? if the workers gained power over their bosses, would that change the social reality of gender oppression? race oppression? animal cruelty? i do not see these results following necessarily =====>>> UNLESS the worker uprising holds a core set of [fundamental] moral values that motivate not just their revolt, but can also compel them to revolt against other forms of oppression.
> One can be for the abolition of racial and sexual
> oppression without opposing capitalism. One can't be for the
> abolition of expoitation of the working class without doing so. I do
> think, however, that if the working class is ever to overcome
> capitalism, its struggle must embrace opposition to all froms of
> oppression and (human) inequality.
exactly!! overcoming capitalism (as you put it) should be a milestone on the way to a much larger struggle. and that will be the case (i.e., we will not putter to a stop after the great worker revolution) only if we appeal to some fundamental moral principles and stay true to them. or so
it seems to me.
> 4) I don't think that respecting picket lines is irrational. It is
> based upon the reasoned belief that the way to a better society, or
> even the defense of the social advances we've made in this one, lies
> through the fight of workers against bosses, and that the most
> effective weapon in his fight is the collective action of workers.
excellent! i do not believe respecting the picket line is irrational either. your explanation on why it is rational is an important step in the reasoning behind that belief.
> Ninety-nine percent of picket lines represent workers in conflict
> with their employers over bread-and-butter issues, and in such
> conflicts I don't have to inquire as to particulars. The workers are
> always right. Therefore, when I see a picket line, any picket line,
> the chances are that it's of this type, and honoring it takes the
> form of a reflex. If I later find out that it belongs to the other
> one percent of picket lines (for some political cause, maybe a
> rightist one) I can exit the reflexive mode, evaluate, and act
> accordingly.
then all we disagree on is when to examine our reflexes. as you point out, there may be some exceptions: IIRC, the police were picketing a springsteen concert.
also, there is the issue raised by brian: how about a union actively discriminates against a group. as i had recast it: at what point do we break solidarity with others? i was willing to support (whatever that means) kerry in the recent election, since i felt he is the least evil. some disagree with even that. they argue either that he is not the least evil, but that settling for the least evil harms us in the long run. etc. etc.
--ravi