--- Leigh Meyers <leighcmeyers at gmail.com> wrote:
> Would you give up your so-called modern "lifestyle"
> to protect these
> workers? Would you turn the thermostat down so the
> intense pressure
> to pull coal out of the ground under
> uncertain/unsafe conditions would
> not be neccesary? (this would also apply to the
> oil/gas refineries in the
> US that have been running at 95% utilization
> (pre-Katrina), and have
> had incredibly high "incident and accident" rates
> for the last couple
> of years).
I am not sure about this country, but many Europeans would and do. Polls In Europe consistently show customer willingness to give up some of their consumer choices to advance a public good, from saving the environment to supporting striking workers. Consumer boycotts of targeted products deemed environmentally unsafe forced many corporations to change their practices.
As for myself, I have sacrified many of my "consumer choices" - from refusing to buy certain products, to not crossing picket lines, to using public transit, to living in a cooperative, to giving decent tips to waiters (which is tantamout to paying decent wages out my pocket).
Now, if labor struggles do not seem to elict the same level solidarity responses as environmental causes in this country, it is mainly becuse labor generally does not do a very good job in popularizing its causes. Using inflammatory yet groundless hyperboles a la "mining murder" certainly does not help.
I think we've discussed that issue in connection with the NYC transit strike, and there was a general agreement that labor did not do a very good job in trying to win "hearts and minds" of the general public. I think that this is true of most labor-related issues.
So if you see people sympathizing with the plight of- and giving up their consumer choices to protect, say, the spotted owl, but not doing much to rally for the improvement of working conditions in many occupations - it is mainly because environmental groups do a much better PR job than labor, organized or otherwise. In fact, the labor takes either the individualist "fuck the unions" "I want to make money for myself" or - if it organized - it it sees itself mainly as a wage cartel and a junior partner of the industry rather than a part of the civil society. And neither of these attitudes are likely to win the hearts and minds of the public.
>
> (Is that *Socialist* enough for you Wojtek?
I do not mean to sound offensive but your remark seem flippant - unless you really don't get it. So let me repeat it once more.
I find anti-government attitudes to be a core part of the US populism and anti-intellectualism, which in turn forms the basis for the right wing ideology and discourse that dominates this country. Every wing nut bitches about the gummint' and its "burden on people's backs", the UN the world government, etc, and proclaims to defend the right of "da people" (usually the people like me, the white people, the black people, the male people, the middle class people, etc.).
Therefore, anyone who simply complains about government and expresses populist sympathies is simply unindistinguishable from the mob of ditto heads, neo-cons, libertarians, militias, white supremacists, black supremacists, right wing populists, etc. Some of those people may or may not be socialists in their hearts, but it is impossible to tell based solely on expressing the above sentiments.
Likewise, someone who complains about capitalist excesses giving mostly Jewish bankers and landlords as examples is merely a closet anti-semite rather than a socialist.
Wojtek
__________________________________________ Yahoo! DSL – Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less. dsl.yahoo.com