>So I apologize to Bill Bartlett, I don't think you are
>a racist or a defender of white privilege. I just
>think you are two charitable in your appraisal of the
>European underclass.
Thanks mate, no more racist than the next man hopefully (which is to say at least a little bit). Perhaps I am a bit charitable too, especially now that one of my ancestors is a classic example of the European underclass - a convicted Irish sheep stealer. I must confess a twinge of illogical pride in the discovery that the family tradition of sheep duffing goes back so far, so that means I'm not entirely innocent.
> > I made no judgement about these "kind of
>> people"
>
>Well, I will make a judgement. I agree that some
>educated middle-class disgust is evident in the
"Some"? I'd hate to see a lot of middle class disgust being displayed.
>Steingart piece (this is Der Spiegel, after all), but
>I think the emergence of this phenomenon, especially
>as one factor explaining the electoral success of the
>NPD in Meck-Pom and Saxony, is worth considering.
OK, we can consider it. But let's not swallow it whole. There's certainly a few few among the so called underclass, as there are everywhere. And even more susceptible to the propaganda (probably more than elsewhere, given that some are looking for answers and susceptible to easy solutions.) But not the majority by any means.
Of course I'm only going by my own experience. Assuming that Europeans aren't all that different from people elsewhere.
Anyway, that's already enough analysis to see that its an issue that requires action, what's to be done about it? I think I can se where Steingart and his ilk are going with this, more policing of the underclass, that kind of thing. Rather than confront the neo-nazis head on, challenge their hate, challenge their answers.
Surely if a critique of the imperatives of commodity production can't find a receptive audience among the European unemployed, then you must be doing it wrong? I always found that audience quite receptive, but though I've never tried using obtuse jargon to get the message across. Might want to work on that. I'm afraid i can't help you there, unless the European underclass all speak English though. ;-)
>Call me scholastic and dogmatic, but I think that this
>gets at the heart of the distinction Marx made between
>the reserve army of labour, and the lumpenproletariat.
> The former, as members of the working-class, are
>subject to the same ideological mystifications and
>foreshortened understanding of capitalism as anyone
>else who lives in this society. The latter, however,
>are generally the social base of counter-revolution
>and reaction.
That's one way of looking at it. The way I would put it is that the unemployed are at the pointy end of the class war. Which can cut both ways.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas