There's an old joke from the British CP in the '30s. Two CP members are talking, and one says the Labour Party doesn't fight the class war. The other says that is wrong. They want to fight the class war, and fight it and fight it and fight it and fight it and fight it and fight it and fight it. They just don't want to win it.
I want to winit. I'm not really sanguine that we ever will, and I know that we won't during my remaining life time 5 or 6 years at most, but thinking abut winning it, and what can be done in a period of low struggle to contribute to that unlikely but possible future victory -- that's what at almost 80 makes life worth living.
And prising the glories of the _present_ (non-existent) working class is not a contribution to a possible future working class winning the fucking war.
One more remark and this prlologue is done. No one, so far as I know (I've only skimmed post so far) responded to my suggestion that "diversity" and "multiculturism" should be seen as articles in an implicit armistice. Our movement of the '60s had exhausted its forces; it couldn't go any furhter. (The Panthers, with all their faults, pointed to the future, but there was no way that that future could be actualized on the terrain of the 1970s. "Diversity" was a temporary umbrella for various oppressed groups. It gave them some entry. Of course it contributed to neolibealism, but it is stupid to whine about the fact that any working-class gain is always also a gain for capitalism. Add a kopek to a ruble. That's good for some people and doesn't hurt others, but it certainly strengthens capital. The civil-rights and anti-war movements were class struggle. They just didn't fit the cutre little pictures of class struggle too many people carry around in their heads. So diversity programs were gains for the working-class (weak gains, but that was the terms of the armistice) that also naturally strengthened capital.
Carrol
shag carpet bomb wrote:
>
> joanna:
>
> > Why is it that in 30 years as a technical writer, I have worked with
> > exactly one black man and no hispanics?
> > And you know, I live in Oakland, this stuff is in my face 24/7.
> >
> > Maybe it's one of those agree to disagree things.
>
> yesterday, I had to speak to 67 of our top level execs. as I stood at
> the podium, I looked out onto a sea of white male faces in shirts and
> ties. With the exception of 4 men from India and two white women, it
> was all male, all white, all the time.
>
> I live in a city that is 40% white; the rest, people of color, 44% black.
>
> Also, one thing that has me curious, after transcribing is that
> Michaels says in his interview that capitalism currently needs the
> best talent at the least cost and that diversity accomplishes that.
>
> That is the most curious statement to me. He says that, right now,
> they aren't getting the best talent.
>
> *chortle*
>
> He seriously believes that what you get hired for is talent.Fucking
> ridiculous.
>
> And he seriously believes that what will happen when there's
> demographic parity is that people will be even more cowed and willing
> to accept lower wages. I think it's quite the opposite, actually.
>
> there's actually an answer to this puzzle, but I don't think Michaels
> would get it because his theory won't let him look around the corners
> of his own theory.
>
> Yes, yes, we know Michaels says that this kind of demographics is just
> another form of racializing and racism. And yes yes we know Michaels
> says that even if the faces were 60% people of color that wouldn't
> touch economic inequality. none of us, as leftists, thinks it does.
> unlike michaels, most of us tend to think that it doesn't hurt
> anything _either_. michaels thinks that, if we just pursued economic
> injustice and gave up on 'diversity' then we'd be much better off. But
> if the issue is, as Doug poses it, about elites and charities and NGOs
> all of a sudden concerning themselves with economic inequality or
> eradicating capitalism, fat fucking chance.
>
> I would love to know the political program is here. In what sense does
> Michaels' book lead to any kind of engaged political practice. Are we
> all supposed to continue to lobby the "thought leaders" as elite
> universities? Are we supposed to lobby our companies to get rid of
> their diversity statements and start having them pledge allegiance tot
> he communist manifesto? If Michaels's goal is to see people riled up
> about the fact that Harvard is a finishing school for the elite, WTF.
> They were a finishing school for the elite before fucking affirmative
> action, and the labor movement was stronger then -- supposedly. Didn't
> make a dent then. I find it utterly absurd, as Eric pointed out, that
> anyone could be so zeroed in on the elite and fixing their wagons --
> as if it would make one dent in anything. As if it wouldn't truly be
> an exercise in futility to try to get Harvard professors to get upset
> about economic inequality. Christ.
>
> Also, precisely in terms of those organizations that are supposed to
> fight the good fight against economic inequality -- unions etc. -- are
> we supposed to do it the "old" way -- the way before diversity
> hopeless infected everything? In other words, people of color got
> upset with the way white people dominated meetings, defined the world
> from their perch as if only whites existed, so on and so forth. Women
> made similar criticisms.
>
> Are men and women of color and white women supposed to just put up
> with the bullshit, lest they get told they are too worried about
> "diversity" and oh lord, look what happened last time we did that.
> remember the bad old days of the last quarter of the 20th century. it
> was horrible! People were so concerned with diversity that we never
> got anything done. Don't make us go back there!
>
> anyway, i also need to answer brad who has mischaracterized my
> position in an earlier post, ascribing to me the view that we must
> change racism first, then class. no, that's NOT my view. but i can see
> why brad would think that since he doesn't understand that i was
> speaking to Marx's Letter to Arnold Ruge, which we recently discussed
> here -- the one about taking sides in current struggles. Michaels
> takes the "ant-antiracism" side. I think he is dead wrong and sides
> with a regressive politics.
>
> shag