I do not think the threat of being killed is a particularized issue, though some logics may see it that way.
> All of this has taken place during a time of record advances in
"equal opportunity" in the workplace, including unprecedented
access of minorities and women to executive positions.
Along with an increase in the number of gay bashings and killings. You need to battle on class and other planes simultaneously.
> Damn, I thought this opposition of "class vs. identity" had gone
the way of the dodo, or at least the 90s.
Just as fashion is rediscovering the '80's, so some people want to go back to the bad old days (which they may not have left in the first place).
> Race, sex, sexual preference are all tied up with the distribution of
property and the division of labor.
But Doug, you have to actually live life and not just theorize it to understand this. But some people are content to be keyboard jockeys and opine from the safety of a home office.
> 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.
Or maybe build on their actual exprience of these identities so that they then expand to an inclusion/creation of a class identity.
> 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.
And because you have been refused entrance, the man whom your mother came to call her third son is put on machines he never wanted to be on because you were denied access.
> I think identity politics marked the end of class struggle -- that
it coopted the legitimate grievances of women and minorities
I always thought being murdered was a legitimate grievance. The things you learn on lbo-talk.
> I am not sure what there is to get here.
The fact that in anti-queer culture, the likelihood of violence against queers increases. In fact, if you want to help the elite do its work, you oppose efforts to end sexism, racism and anti-queer hatred.
> A [genuine] question: what is the basis of solidarity? Surely it is
more than back-scratching?
Why does it have to be more than that? By working to alleviate the real life oppression I suffer and my doing the same in return, a great of solidarity can be brought about (you have to unattach yourself from your keyboard to do so, of course).
> They are under the delusion that there is some magic formula which
will instantly revive The Left
It is the desire for some Party Line they can prostrate themselves before which I do not see coming back any time soon (maybe never). Pluralism looks like a permanent fixture of the future.
> more or less deliberately avoiding the fact that criticisms of or policies
for The Left are empty until there is something (probably a loose coalition,
but an identifiable one) that can be called The Left.
However, The Left re-emerges, I doubt it will be similar to Lefts of the past. Time to throw the wayback machines on the scrap heap.
> Capitalism is possible w/o the oppression of gays, blacks, women and
national minorities
Is it?
> but you can't have capitalists or capitalist society w/o workers.
Agreed, but you also need scapegoats in capitalism.
> I tried to explain this to Rorty, but he remained, as
I told him to his considerable resentment, a vulgar
"Marxist" to the core, unshakable in his belief that
all of us are really fairly directly linked in our
behavior to our economic interests understood in
pretty narrow terms as wages and benefits.
Throwing reality in Rorty's face? No wonder you were offered no roses.
> so what do we do with racist homophobic white union activists?
who then is engaging in identity politics at the expense of class
struggle?
Sing out Louise!
Brian