[lbo-talk] Taibbi (was Re: Fwd: Antioch College Closing!)

[ravi]

On 16 Jun, 2007, at 10:13 AM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> On Jun 16, 2007, at 2:19 AM, Joseph Catron wrote:
>
>> identity politics war far superior, for their purposes, to class
>> struggle.
>
> Damn, I thought this opposition of "class vs. identity" had gone the
> way of the dodo, or at least the 90s. Why are these things in
> opposition? Race, sex, sexual preference are all tied up with the
> distribution of property and the division of labor. They intersect
> with class in all kinds of ways: jobs, promotions, pay, access to
> inheritance. And it's a phenomenal fact that people experience their
> lives through these "identity" categories. You can tell them all you
> like that it's a delusion, and it's really all about class, but
> you've got to do a lot of analytical and rhetorical work to make that
> clear. There's no pure essence of class apart from these categories
> in actual lives. And there are a lot of important things that class
> doesn't really touch - like the privilege of visiting your sick
> partner in the ICU.

A [genuine] question: what is the basis of solidarity? Surely it is  
more than back-scratching?

	--ravi