Thinking in systemic terms has been rare, even on the left. It is much easier to throw invective on the current occupant of the White House. Not to mention the fact that being cocky toward authority figures is very nacho and thus highly respected in many circles of the working class culture. It is more about style than substance - as Bourdieu convincingly argued.
"Cultural capital" is as if not more important than money and relationship to the means of production in class distinction. Virility, cockiness and chutzpah are an important currency in this cultural capital accumulation - hence their ubiquity in the political discourse, especially in this country.
There was a saying in the feminist circles in which I traveled some time ago, that in the 1960s men were making a revolution while women were making coffee. My ex, herself a radical feminist and a union organizer told me that this macho cockiness was still the case in the 1990s union culture - putting up a fight, or perhaps posturing to do so, was far more important than building alliances with effeminate liberals and their organizations.
Wojtek
On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 4:37 PM, c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On May 6, 2013, at 4:11 PM, c b wrote:
> >
> > By Karl Henkel
> > The Detroit News
> > Detroit automakers fight to stem huge losses in Europe
> > Strong unions, political resistance make changes harder than in the
> > U.S.
> >
> > ^^^^
> > CB: How about austerity has taken money out of the hands of European
> > consumers
>
> How about they don't have an Obama (or even a "Communist" Party) to
> euthanize their unions?
>
> ^^^^^^^
> CB: How about how out of touch with empirical reality you are to blame
> the ideology of the US unions on the Communist Party which was
> expelled from the unions 60 years ago. How about how dumb to claim
> that Barack Obama euthanized the US unions.
>
> Not to mention what a sucker for bourgeois propaganda you are to
> believe the claim in the above article that a drop in sales in Europe
> is due to strong unions in Europe.
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>
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."