On 2010-09-22, at 11:26 AM, c b wrote:
> Marv Gandall
>
> There's every reason to suppose large numbers of white workers would
> have subordinated their racist impulses to their class interests and
> identifed with Obama if he had launched a forceful attack on the banks
> and corporations as the source of the economic distress felt by all
> working people, black and white.
>
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: Sadly , there isn't every reason to suppose this. US working
> class anti-racist consciousness is no where near this and is the
> complete opposite of this , in the main. The US ruling class has
> focused primarily on corrupting US white workers consciousness in this
> regard since immediately upon the end of slavery right through to the
> present, from Jim Crow through Reaganism. We say "Black , Brown and
> White , unite and fight" . They say "Divide based on race at all
> costs. " Obama's election did not signal the overthrow of all that,
> though it seems to be an amazing breech of the bunker.
There may be not every reason to suppose that attacking rather than capitulating to the "monied interests" would have retained the white working class support Obama won during the election, but there is some.
The US working class is not uniquely divided by racism. All classes have been internally divided by race and ethnicity, and all ruling classes have tried to exploit these divisions.
The Russian peasantry and working class, for example, was deeply infected by anti-semitism, but this did not prove to be an insurmountable barrier to their rallying in a crisis to the Bolsheviks who appealed to common class interest of all nationalities within the Empire. Anti-semitic prejudices disappeared or were set aside during the course of the struggle, despite the consistent racist propaganda of the whites who portrayed the Bolsheviks as the party of the Jews.
We don't know whether the Obama administration would have had more success among workers of all colours if, among other things, it had reverted to the anticapitalist rhetoric of the New Deal, exposed the bankers as the Pecora Commission did in the 30s, rolled back dividends and bonuses and focused public spending on direct job creation rather than the bailouts. But it's doubtful it would have frittered away more working class support than it has to date since the election.
These suggestions aren't as "left-wing", as you've tried to present them; they emanate from deep within Obama's liberal base, from Krugman, Reich, and others I've previously cited.