--- On Wed, 9/10/08, James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> From: James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk>
> Subject: [lbo-talk] ABC News/Washington Post Poll: After the Conventions
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Wednesday, September 10, 2008, 4:31 AM
> Still, I think that Ms Palin provoked a pretty obnoxious
> reaction from Dems
> which says more about their weaknesses than hers.
>
> She was lambasted for having too many kids, too late, for
> hunting, for
> having a daughter who was pregnant out of wedlock, Bill
> Maher called her
> 'this stewardess'.
>
> People have pointed out the sexism in these comments. What
> stands out for me
> is the class hatred. For sure, Palin's commonman
> background has been
> manufactured - but all the Democrat commentators seem to
> take it on face
> value and attack her for it.
>
> What comes across to me, looking in from over here, is that
> Hilary Clinton
> had a point about the Obama supporters - they just
> don't like working class
> people, and they have a visceral reaction against anyone
> who is not educated
> and connected.
>
> Campaigns tend to draw out such weaknesses, and that is not
> good news for
> Obama.
[WS:] You have a good poijnt about Dem's weakness. They were taken by surprise, if not maneouvered into a trap by cunning Repugs, and they started lashing out when they found themselves in a trap.
But I fundamentally disagree with your line of the "hatred of the working class." The US does not have working class as such - it has mainly petit bourgeois class (or booboisie, as HL Mencken used to call them) that mistakenly passes for the working class. Take truck drivers, contractors, realtors, consultants, etc. for example - they own thier means of production, so in in a marxist sense they alrteady qualify on this criterion alone as petit bourgeoisie. But there is also the cultural dimension - petit bourgeois life styles (consumerism, petty property ownership,) and values (religiosity, idolatry, anti-intellectualism, anti-government posture, bigotry, and parochialism).
>From that point of view, what you are talking about is a visceral reaction against petit bourgeoisie, not against working class. What is wrong with that, especially if you are a leftist?
PS. I may add that the US working class lives largely outside the US - in China, Indonesia, Mexico (from where it comes as migrant labor) etc.
Wojtek