[lbo-talk] Pimping the working class. Was: LA demos something

Chuck Grimes cgrimes at rawbw.com
Mon Mar 27 20:07:53 PST 2006


That turnout is really inspiring. But it's a different demographic from the antiwar crowd, no? Doug

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I've been thinking about that. BTW there was a small latino antiwar march that had started in Tijuana and made it up to SF area today. The leader's son was killed in Iraq.

The LA demos are more than just a demographic difference. They are a real working class movement protecting their communities, their families, friends, and in solidarity with current and future immigrants. Basically the legislation threatens to criminalize them.

Many Mexicans and Mexican-Americans move back and forth over the border on a quasi-regular basis, spending part of the year in Mexico, part in the US. Half my daughter-in-law's family does this in Texas. For example my grand-daughter's cousins are all Mexican citizens.


>From the left pov, the real issues are all labor related---but very
tough to organize: like unionization of domestic, agriculture and construction labor, going back to hiring halls, and paying dues when not employed to keep current, etc, etc.

It also seems to me that the demos are centered on a civil rights identity basis, obviously hispanic. While that basis gets the turn out, it also obscures the more radical potential of working class issues. No doubt most people who marched have no intention of becoming radicalized---although they should.

Pimping the working class. That's the issue. That's always the issue in neoliberalism. In fact that is the only issue. How to pimp the labor market. All this crap about `free trade' and `open markets' is just capital pig shit to obfuscate the central issue, which is how to pimp the working class.

The irony of waving the Mexican flag is that the rich elite of Mexico are pimping their labor excess (the people waving the flag), exploiting their lands and environment for gingro development to keep the Mexican economy alive (and their own asses on top), and conducting business just as nasty as any other.

I actually hope the reconciliation legislation does criminalize illegals. Most of the people marching were working-middle class people who are just like the rest of us---they don't really want to expose themselves to a serious confrontation with the US elite. They want to make some noise and go home and watch it on tv. They want to be safe and believe that the US is still the land of equal opportunity for all. It ain't.

It's fuck you all the way down---and the sooner more people understand that, the better.

CG



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