Personally I'll tell you what I told Dick Rorty, that vulgar Marxism is a flop (he didn't like that at all), that you can priorities till we are blue in the face but you can't make anyone do anything, and that we can have the perfect program but the spirits of the vastly deep will not answer us unless they want to. He got that dumb shit from his (ex-)Trot parents and kept it even when he became an anti-communist, you know, the idea that if we run the Correct Line, in this case Bring Back The New Deal and forget anything that will alienate white unemployed ex-steelworkers in Youngstown, then we can elect Democrats and all will be well. Childish.
You know, I can't speak for them, but think that Brian, or for that matter my sister (who's also gay) might be willing to sacrifice their own interests in human treatment if there was _any reason_, by which I mean, say, a demonstrable 5% probability, that doing so would actually advance the interests of the "working class as a whole" in some material way. Say, win us card-check union organizing within two sessions of Congress, or a minimum wage that applied to all workers and paid above the poverty level, or, God forbid, universal national health insurance. Maybe they wouldn't.
But without something like that, why do you think that anyone should even _talk_ to you about "prioritizing," meaning telling parts of the population that their interests aren't important and they can wait till whenever? Do you think they are complete idiots? Do you think we are?
--- "Mr. WD" <mister.wd at gmail.com> wrote:
> Andie,
>
> Yeah, your response does qualify as a howl of
> outrage, IMO. You have
> made my point, which is that one can't even pose the
> question "should
> some issues be *prioritized* over others?" without
> getting screamed
> at.
>
> If I understand you correctly, your position is that
> since no one has
> an obvious answer about what to do about energizing
> the movement, it
> is impossible to come up with decent reasons why
> some good issues
> ought to have priority over other good issues.
>
> I am not persuaded by this reasoning. While I
> oppose all forms of
> oppression, I reject the notion that all forms of
> oppression are
> equally harmful or that without a Master Plan it's
> wrong to try to
> establish anything resembling a political priority.
> Why is opposing
> the war more important than promoting gay marriage?
> Because the harms
> associated with the former are worse than the harms
> associated with
> the absence of the latter (getting blown up and shot
> is worse than
> having the state refuse to recognize your
> relationship).
>
> I am not saying everyone needs to agree with me
> about which issues are
> the most important, but I see nothing wrong with
> starting off by
> saying "we ought to have political priorities" and
> then having a
> healthy debate about what those priorities should
> be. Until I am
> convinced otherwise, sure, I'll happily throw my hat
> in with Rorty.
>
> This is my third and last post of the day.
> -WD
>
>
> On 6/15/07, andie nachgeborenen
> <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Given that you admit that like anyone else you
> have no
> > idea what to do about energizing the movement, why
> > don't you stop there rather than denigrating other
> > people for working on trivialities? I don't think
> "the
> > American left" is a unitary entity that has
> adopted a
> > line "no privileging" -- in English we'd say
> > "prioritizing." To the extent that everyone has
> not
> > flocked to your favorite issues, maybe not
> everyone
> > agrees. Explain to Brian, in plain words, why it
> > doesn't matter that his marriage can't be
> recognized
> > in the US, and why he should put off worry about
> this
> > and for how long. Oh, I'm sorry, is that a howl of
> > outrage? I really just wanted an explanation,
> > honestly. I am sure Brian wants one. But I do know
> > that it will not likely to energize the struggle
> or,
> > national health or against the war if we all
> forget
> > gay marriage, or do you disagree? Why isn't that
> > economic activity, btw, since marriage is
> primarily a
> > bundle of economic rights? Just asking. If that's
> what
> > made it important. Writing off gay marriage will
> also
> > lose us the support of many gays, who might feel
> > differently if you had a reason to think that
> > abandoning them until whenever would materially
> > contribute to ending the war, for example. But
> maybe
> > you think there are too few active gays for that
> to
> > matter? While we are at it, what other issues
> aren't
> > important and should be set aside till we get back
> to
> > them while we work on the really important stuff?
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