With McCain we get zero chance. We can do nothing
and he will win or lose without us, maybe because of
our abstention, maybe not. So the best option IMO
(but check back with me next week) is to build a
supportive but content-rich critical voice that seeks
to bring strange ideas into the mainstream.
Ideal would be building independent organizations,
but nobody seems to know how to do that. Supporting
trade unionism is a no-brainer. With increasing union
density -- two, three, many Andy Sterns -- unions should
get more assertive and gain influence instead of attacking
each other and projecting dopey policy innovations.
A good question is why there isn't a radical equivalent
of Kos or Free Republic. I think that would make a difference.
Anti-war.com is infected with libertarian and other strange
currents. Z is pretty commercial and politically idiosyncratic,
IMO. MaxSpeak is defunct and never amounted to a peehole
in the snow. What else is there?
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Charles Brown
> Sent: 07/01/08 03:40 pm
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: [lbo-talk] sprinting rightwards
>
>
> But the question Doug raises is this: is political support for Obama a
>
> "real means of struggle" for the working class? I remember similar
> arguments about Clinton back in 92, and what did we get? --Welfare
> "reform" and trade policies that systematically eliminated working
> class
> jobs. I hear max saying "give Obama a chance", but c'mon: how many
> times do we have to get fucked over before we wise up?
>
> As I read the Marx quote again, it occurs to me that Julio's
> interpretation should be inverted. Given the historical context, the
> assumption that an Obama presidency would systematically support the
> interests of the working class is at best an "idealistic fantasy".
> Thus
> it is the uncritical Obama enthusiasts--not the Obama "skeptics"--who
> are analogous to the anarchists Marx ridicules.
>
> Miles
>
> ^^^^
> CB: Here you ignore the centrality of racism in US politics and
> history. The act of millions of white working class people ( 85% of the
> population is working class) voting for a Black person for President is
> a "primo real means of struggle" in the US. It creates the potential for
> Black/White unity on other issues
>
> By the way, Karl Marx had this insight , too. In _Capital_ , he
> famously said concerning the US specifically, " Labor in the white skin
> will not be free while labor in Black skin is branded. "
>
>
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