[lbo-talk] Re: lbo-talk Digest, Vol 32, Issue 8

[Jim Straub]

I agree that bit right there is the most dubious of what I'm throwing out-
I'd be more interested in what you think of the general thrust of that
argument (that people should go where and do what leftists don't do much of
yet).  And I don't mean to fall into NY-bashing (anti-intellectualisms'
kissing-cousin).  But would you disagree that NYC is the world capital of
leftists talking to other leftists?  Of course it has the largest
multinational working class in the United States, and politics there is
reduced to kleptocratic political and union machines battling plutocratic
robber barons (I'm borrowing this phrase from Fitch--- I loved his work
before this last book).  Surely the city ought to be a hotbed of the
liberal-left like SF or even LA is now.  If it isn't, I don't know why.  But
I do know that most of the leftists I know who move there do not do so to
engage in mass organizing, or wind up a normal person embedded in their
community.  Between the colleges, the art scene, the hipster parties, the
sect headquarters and the debating circles like ours (not to mention
covering the high rent!), NYC does seem to have less of a mass left these
days than say LA or Chicago.

Maybe I should have said, "don't move to Brooklyn."  Eh?

But really I'm less interested in debating NYC itself than the proposition
that leftists should stop flocking to, clustering with, and talking to other
leftists.  Would you dispute the point if I struck NYC from the list and
left it at SF Bay Area and the liberal college towns?  Anyone want to take
up the cause of sparking revolution from Madison or Charlottesvile?  back
when I lived in Ohio, sometimes when we'd be out housevisiting hospital
workers who worked at a place in springfield, we'd have one or two of them
who lived closer to the college lefty town of Yellow Springs, where antioch
is.  When we'd drive through yellow springs and see the 'infoshop' and noon
peace demos with three old hippies, we'd shake our heads and be glad we were
talking to workers all day instead of talking about them in a labor studies
class or whatever.  But as we drove away from yellow springs, I'd look back
longingly, pining for the tasty tofu sandwhiches, good coffee, and
microbrews available in that town.  Dinner in Springfield was a glum choice
between long john silvers and arby's.  The temptations to flee honkie
america are strong.


> >
> > -Don't move to NYC
>
> Yeah, no working class there!
>
> What kind of nonsense is this? This city is profoundly divided by
> class and race, with a vast low-wage workforce, oodles of "non-
> participants," and some awful unions. If ever anyplace needed better
> organization, it's here.
>
> Doug
>
>
>
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