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<DIV class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">turbulo@aol.com wrote:<BR><BR>>I know the social democratic mind has a hard time digesting this, <BR>>but history has known sudden leaps--both in society--revolutions, <BR>>they are called--and the necessary leaps in consciousness <BR>>that accompany them.<BR><BR>Really? Do tell. I've never heard of these revolution thingys before.<BR>*******<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I think that's spelled "thingies." I know you "know" about 1793 and 1917, but the kind of consciousness these events gave rise to is, as far as I can tell, completely foreign to your temperement. Otherwise you wouldn't ridicule the notion of sudden changes in awareness, as you do. A revolutionary must have in him/her something of the millenarian, as opposed to the quotidian.<BR>***********<o:p></o:p></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">> Maybe it's been so long sinch such an event has taken place that we <BR>>tend to forget they ever happened. But progress will never happen <BR>>unless large numbers of people disabuse themselves of backward <BR>>ideas. And the notion that they are middle class is one of the most <BR>>backward and paralysing ideas American workers are beset with. It is <BR>>embedded in many other reactionary notions--that money and social <BR>>status are an indications of personal worth, and that the social <BR>>hierarchy is therefore legitimate, for instance. But it is also <BR>>deeply implicated in notions of race. White poor people think <BR>>they're midddle class because they're not part of the underclass, <BR>>which happens to be guess what.There is nothing to be gained by <BR>>capitulating to backwa! rd consciousness.<BR><BR>Sorry to repeat myself after just six months, but... When I was in <BR>Italy in 1976, I heard a story from a guy who said he'd been <BR>bicycling on Sardinia and rode past a mental hospital. On the <BR>hospital grounds, a female patient was tied to a tree, and three <BR>shrinks in white coats were slapping her, saying, "You're *not* the <BR>Virgin Mary!" Ever since, I've been tempted to recommend a trip to <BR>Sardinia for certain neurotics I know. But now I learn that that's <BR>the sound revolutionary treatment for deluded workers. Slap 'em <BR>around and insist "You *are* working class!"---Doug<BR>**********<o:p></o:p></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">You have a knack for trivializing big questions. More than nomenclature is involved here. One side of white American working-class consciousness is in solidarity with the white ruling class in opposition to blacks and US neo-colonial subjects. Many workers also believe that owning companies or being able to live off investment portfolios is a mark of superior intelligence or diligence. Saying they're middle class is often a shorthand expression of these feelings. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></DIV>
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