"Politicus E." wrote:
>
[The point about inflation was marginal & given too much emphasis; we
can ignore it.)
>
> > She was angriest of all at two disturbing categories:
>
> > a) Those who pretended to be sick and used up all the money intended for
> the poor
>
> > b) those illegal --ILLEGAL-- (her emphasis really) aliens who were taking
> up all the jobs that poor people could get.
>
> Second, thank you for this insight. For me, it substantiates that there can
> be no emergernce of powerful anti-capitalist/socialist political forces, in
> the US context, without the concurrent raising of
> anti-racist/anti-imperialist awareness. These things are dialectically
> inseperable. You cannot have one without the other, in the US context.
> Otherwise we get Lou Dobbs, and cases such as the one that you mentioned.
> So, I agree with you on this second point.
(I generally agree with this.) Some Observatons.
She _did_ come to a rally clearly advertised as opposing u.s. military action;, and this at a time when much of the oomph has gone out of the anti-war movement. But a call really directed only at anti-war enthusiasts brought someone with real grievances but also terrible confusions into conversation with "the left" for a few minutes, even if the particualr embodiment of "The Left" at that point couldn't do much but punt. And it did (for me) concretize both some of those confusions and their interaction with attitudes (anti-war) which ... It's got my brain bubbling anyhow, and in fact the incident represents for me what makes it fun to be on the left.
[Following is thinking out loud.] I'm wondering. If she comes back, or if we encounter others like here, if the route to a better conversation wouldn't be concent by focusing on first finding out what _her_ reasons for opposing the war are, then working from them into a "deeper" analysis of the war itself, with the purpose in mind of intorducing, in practice, looking behnd appearances. If it worked, if you could get her into really exploring the war and its various connections, that would open up two avenues of further exploration: a) the need to look beyond appearances (not necessarily so labelled) and (b) the concept of solidarity -- i.e. of overcoming _apparent_ clashes of interests (who has the jobs). Eh? Have to think some more.
Carrol