To a certain extent those who choose to engage on an active level in this kind of politics are already lost to seeing the U.S. and corporate capitalism clearly. They have already bought into patriotism and nationalism. On an individual level their is always room for change. But no one gets anywhere without telling the truth.
The question is can the truth be heard? Bourdeiu talks about the difference between the 'sayable' and the 'hearable'. The lesson I take from the Rev. Wright affair is that the Obama people cannot even hear what he is saying. They continually talk as if his only message is about race. But they can't even engage the idea that the U.S. is a terrorist nation. Until they can hear this, until they can unlearn their nationalist education they are lost to the kind of politics that can help to turn the U.S. around.
> The kind of politics you are advocating is in fact the opposite of the
> > kind
> > of organizing we need to develop a radical mass movement. Electoral
> > politics is usually demobilizing and aids disorganization and not the
> > opposite. This has been the usual effect of electoral politics. There
> > are
> > exceptions. You speak of the enhancement of anti-imperialist politics
> "by
> > tens of millions of expectant Democrats emboldened by victory". Well it
> > is
> > always possible but usually this kind of disillusionment leads to
> > bitterness.
>
> You think the FDR and JFK victories demobilized rather than stimulated mass
> expectations and activity,
These are complicated questions. But I would say that, yes, in the long run FDR was demobilizing. He helped to channel a union upsurge away from radical politics and eventually helped to turn truly progressive legislation such as the Wagner act into the kind of anti-union laws we have today.
Again let me emphasize that counterfactual history is complicated. The fact is that few people have considered the other side. It is possible that you are correct about FDR and I am wrong. But it is not a clear cut question. For instance look at the no-strike pledge that FDR (with the help of the Stalinists) rammed down the throats of unions during a five year period during and after WW II. Most union militants of all political stripes wished to ignore. Those union militants were marginalized and at times purged from their unions. I know that in my family's hometown of Schenectady that the loss of Catholic and socialist radicals and their replacement with mobbed up business union types prepared the way for the kind of union movement we have today. The loss of radicalism in the union movement was to some extent due to the illusions (especially the Catholic radicals I knew of) that people maintained in FDR.
As far as JFK is concerned. There is no evidence that he had any effect one way or another as far as an upsurge in mobilization. All people who say otherwise are caught in retrospective nostalgia. The civil rights movement predated Kennedy and would have followed the same rhythms if Nixon had been elected. Kennedy's assassination and canonization did have a contradictory effect but this has little to do with his election and it is not a route that I am hoping to repeat with any future president. But for sure JFK's assassination allowed Johnson to pass legislation that would have never been forced through congress by the Kennedys. LBJ cynically and happily used JFK's sainthood to push through his legislative program.
I don't think that you are looking at this history deeply enough. Of course no one can predict the future. But as examples, the election of Jackson, Grant and Wilson led to an upsurge of reactionary disillusionment, even though they were supposed to be ( and actually were in the case of Grant) the more "progressive" choice. Carter has been a great ex-president but his election was certainly demobilizing to a lot of forces and in retrospect it would have probably been better if Ford had been elected. How can you predict the future side-effect of ruling class politics? The calculations are not straight forward. They are only (bad) guesses.
and that the better outcome would have been their
> respective defeats by Hoover and Nixon?
>
> > But look at what you are doing. What you are doing is advocating
> > disillusionment and I find this much more cynical. You are saying that
> > the
> > people who support Obama don't need to know what little truth we do know
> > about how the U.S. state and corporations treat those who have little
> > power
> > in the world. They don't need to know that they should oppose the Afghan
> > war and that it matters that Obama supports the Afghan war. They don't
> > need
> > to know that the U.S. backs murderous policies by Israel and our
> > corporations in Latin America and that Obama is in full supports of those
> > policies.
>
> You know I'm not "advocating disillusionment". But how and when to raise
> particular issues is always a tactical rather than a principled question.
> Do
> you always and everywhere call for armed struggle because you don't accept
> there can be a peaceful overthrow of capitalism, and are you "cynical" if
> you don't do so? Clearly, to be heard, you have to address issues in
> context, as events provoke discussion of them. Alas, you can't force your
> agenda on people no matter how urgently you may feel about it. You run the
> greater risk of being regarded as a nettlesome crank. As it happens, I
> suspect many if not most Democrats already have serious reservations about
> US policy in the Middle East and Latin America but think Obama's bellicose
> talk in just electioneering and that once in office there will be a more
> "even-handed" and accomodative foreign policy than under Bush. They may be
> right, but even if they are wrong, you will unfortunately have to wait for
> them to experience Obama's policy before you will be able to credibly
> indict
> him for betraying their hopes.
I understand your point of view. I just profoundly disagree with it. Partially this is because I do look at people such as Obama as part of the "class enemy". And yes you are right you can't force people to "hear" what you say. You must "turn them around," as Socrates once remarked, before they can understand what you are saying. But it does no good to participate in a so-called "movement" that is based on personality and charisma. It does no good to accept the "idealism" of such people at face value. Unfortunately I think it is better to be a nettlesome crank. Partially this is because it is my contention, that what ever movement Obama represents is harmful to "working class" or movement politics and not good for it. We profoundly disagree on this issue.
>...somehow the people who are enthusiastic about Obama
> > will be transformed and by the election, will be "emboldened by victory",
> > and will come to anti-imperialistic politics sometime in the future when
> > Obama doesn't fulfill their hopes. So why won't they get sick of
> politics
> > altogether and say "let the devil take the hind-most I will get what is
> > mine" when they are betrayed by ruling class politics? This happens more
> > often than your scenario.
>
> They may well say this. Some will for sure. But I still maintain the
> historical record shows electoral victories have stimulated mass action
> rather than been a deterrent to it, while defeats have had a dampening
> effect. Venezuela may provide us with a contemporary example of this maxim
> -
> both ways.
>
> > And why is Obama winning "a victory." I look at an Obama victory as a
> > defeat for oppressed people but all elections between ruling class
> > candidates are some variety of defeat. The fact that we are unable to
> > organize an independent non-ruling class movement makes this kind of
> > electoral politics always and everywhere self-defeating for those of us
> > opposed to the ruling class.
>
> So if I may ask again: Why in heaven's name would you contremplate voting
> for Obama if it's your conviction his election would represent a "defeat
> for
> oppressed people..
As I said, there is relative defeat. A retreat is a defeat but is not as bad as a slaughter.
I make my choice by trying to think through whether more people will suffer or die if McCain is elected rather than Obama. McCain's foreign policy is quite insane. Obama's politics is normal ruling class politics. There is a difference. But it is not a difference I am willing to brag about. Maybe it's more than a dimes worth of a difference. Maybe it is two bits worth of a difference. And if this is the difference, if the difference between McCain and Obama is so small, even though significant for people on the other end of U.S. guns, why should I not say this to Obama supporters?
Why should I accept what they say when they tell me that Obama represents a "change of course"? I maintain that the significance of Obama is that if elected he will represent "a return to normal" for U.S. domination and not a "change of course". If this is true I have to explain to people what is "normal." It is the "norm" of U.S. foreign policy that leads to torture, atrocities, war mongering, deprivation, starvation, and oppression. It is the norm of U.S. foreign policy that I wish to expose. Those who are for Obama are for this norm, some more and some less consciously. The one thing that can be said for them is that they are against the insanity represented by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and, seemingly, McCain.
On McCain, by the way, I have heard the same arguments made for him as are made for Obama. His "insanity" is simply something he has to perform in order to attract the right-wing elements of his party. He is really a normal, old fashion, foreign policy hawk.
.(and) for those of us opposed to the ruling class?" At
> least, those who choose to abstain or toss their vote to Nader or
> McKinney (another form of abstention) are being consistent. I'll leave you
> to continue wrestling with this contradiction. But we seem to be at an
> impasse.
I do agree we have reached an impasse. But I thank you for "thinking through" with me.
Jerry
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