In Albert Speer's book, “Inside the Third Reich,” he makes a single great observation amongst a tremendous sea of liberal hand wringing and architectural anecdotes. He observes during a speech of Hitler's that Hitler's true rhetorical genius wasn't in flourishes, or particular turns of phrase, but in his ability to look at a crowd and know what they wanted. To play exactly to the crowd's desires, to follow it's shifting mood. Hitler doesn't play the crowd, dictating to them the world as he sees it: the crowd has an already determined vision of the world, and Hitler builds it up before them, promises them the strength they individually lack to build it.
As when Marx said that every mode of production has its time and place, and dies precisely when the time has come to transition to a new mode, when the old mode has exhausted itself, so too can we say that all great triumphs were triumphs of a particular time and particular place. They were triumphs specifically because they fit their time and place, and all great failures are thus the opposite – events and actions not at all suited to their setting, either being from out of the past or the future. All of this can of course be summed up with the old saw that “Every country has the government it deserves.” Or, at least, they will eventually, for only the form of government suited to that nations specific circumstances will endure more than a few years. Anything else is an aberration.
This all seems like common sense, of course, but becomes problematic when applied specifically, which is to say critically. For example, let us consider the “long counter-revolution” to borrow a phrase, of American social-politics: that is, the last 40 years. Following the tremendous surge of “progressive” type activity under LBJ: the anti-poverty initiatives, the civil rights movement, the forced desegregation of schools and cities, the mass unrest in Chicago, so on and so on, America writ large performed a tremendous about-face and elected Nixon twice by a land-slide. With the exception of the crushingly unpopular Carter, whose mildest, most marginal challenges to the established thread of American political life earned him his great throne in the demonology of American political history, America has been completely dominated by a single thoroughly reactionary regime for over 4 decades.
In any other situation, one might look at such a scenario and reasonably come to the conclusion that the American people were conservative rightists, as a rule. To return to the introduction, four decades is a long time, and in its sovereignty center-right capitalism has reigned absolute. No type of opposition has been brooked: center-left candidates such as Nader are reviled in popular memory as reasonless wreckers, and anyone who attempts to articulate a non center-right center-left binary of politics in the media is derided as a loony, an Unrealistic Man who doesn't realize that Compromise Is The Soul Of Democracy. One must look hard, desperately hard, for any sign of leftism amongst the American people.
But that is the aberration, we are told! The rightist regime is all wrong, nobody really likes it, they've just been tricked into liking it! The American people are secretly leftists, perhaps they do not even know that they are, but most certainly they are! Such thought is the brother of Obama-type hopium of 2008: before consulting the nation at all, or analyzing its past, America is categorically categorized as a leftist nation which dare not speak its politics. For it to be otherwise would fly in the face of the sort of ridiculous “What's A Matter With Kansas?” type tripe that's soaked into the bones of American leftists. It is pointed out that Americans oppose cuts to social security, or that they are only in favor of winning wars, being as a rule opposed to losing wars, and in this way evince a sort of primitive, unaware leftisim. Is it leftism to demand that wars be brief and successful? To demand higher taxes on others and more benefits for yourself? If it were so, then we should find that all the great generals and capitalists ever chronicled were leftists, for they always urged that un-winnable wars not be fought and that others must pay for the maintenance of their lifestyle!
Many leftist-types of analysis of America thus jettison materialist analysis of the balance of social forces in American civil society (they must, for if they didn't then they would be forced to re-consider their positions!) and instead favor a very circumscribed vision, that is, explanation, for why Americans seem to be so conservative and 'regressive': political and martial repression. As discussed, the American people are secretly, primitively leftists, but the media doesn't allow them to speak! And the police beat them up when they try to organize! How are we to make a revolution, or even a revolution-minded people, when such are the odds against us? But allow me to ask: has any insurgency ever enjoyed a comparative advantage in technology, organization, or capital, over their opponents? Has any revolutionary army ever been allowed to form in peace, the armed guards of the counter-revolution standing gracefully aside, fearful of making things 'unfair' by intervening too early, before the revolutionaries have signaled they are ready for the contest to begin? Of course not! It has never happened as such and, for obvious material reasons, never will happen as such.
Revolutions happen precisely because one class has been denied agency and expression, if the American people were not only leftist but further able to organize freely as leftists then there would be no need for a revolution in the first place! The very conditions leftist-types demand before the execution of a successful revolution completely nullify the need for revolution! As an example, with one face American leftists declare that no one could ever win against the arrayed forces of the American military-political establishment (so as to excuse their own failure), and then with the other face they announce that it is common sense, born out by history, that the Afghan people, and no people generally for that matter, can ever be conquered by any imperial army so long as they continue to believe in victory. Revolution, to use that old phrase, seems to me to be a stick with two ends.
Identified as such, we can happily brush this paradox of liberal logic aside and return once more to the beginning: if the American people are not being repressed into line, then there must be something else keeping them in line. There is repression going on certainly, but there is repression in any but the most utopian of societies. If the American people were being truly oppressed then there would be some more material stirrings of unrest more significant than an explicitly anti-violent march on Wall Street to demand the president set up a board of inquiry. The economic argument has been done to death, so I shall leave it alone and focus instead on the cultural: that is to say, that the most powerful voting bloc - poor and middle class whites - still identify with the imagined community of the American right rather than with the imagined community of the American left.
America is a broken nation, and I here use nation in the old way, that is, a broken union of people. Once a distinctly white Christian murderous settler nation, the progressive era attempted to actually follow through on the nonsense promise of liberalism that 'eventually all differences will be leveled and all will co-exist peacefully and equally without division by creed or color', which had previously only existed as a mirage used to distract the poor while the rich of the world transitioned from plantation slavery to wage slavery. In attempting to set free the caged minorities of the nation, not even really doing so, but just appearing to do so, which is really all that matters from our perspective, LBJ and the other progressive-types did irreparable damage to the old America, trying to build a new one, one that would 'finally' synch up materially with the idiotic and flighty rhetoric of its founders. The vicious and swift response of the white American nation to the project: riots against busing, white flight, divestment from the city centers, a re-energized right and the beginning of the fight against progressive type legislation, reaching its apotheosis in Clinton's roll back of welfare and the coming Obama sponsored roll backs of social security and medicare, formed the core of the of the long counter-revolution, which we set out to examine in the beginning of this essay.
The success of the long counter-revolution over the past 40 years has been predicated on the continued social dominance of one solitary figure: that of the anxious white. Beset by fears economic, racial, and religious, the long counter-revolution has stood to this lonely group as the last possible sanctuary from The Barbarian Hordes. Presidents turned into cowboys, pledging to protect brave American settlers from enemies both foreign (Soviets) and domestic ( minorities), and a new American age was declared, preserving all that was good about the old order (the idealized tranquility of the American family unit) while all that was bad was ejected (the welfare state).
Obama himself, bizarrely, has functioned as the apogee of this model: by following more or less the same line as previous presidents of the counter-revolution, but being about as non-threatening a black man as possible, going so far as to even exchange basketball for golf, he re-assures the conflicted and instinctively self loathing white population of that nation that their fears are unfounded, America is not a nation built on and maintained by racism! Enjoy the spoils of your settler state in peace, you've earned it! Through Obama, liberal self-doubt and worry is transformed into a grand new project: the completion of the old, previously abandoned progressive-type ideas of equality and equity, but without any sort of material change, the kind which white Americans reacted to so violently at the start of this essay.
White Americans want equality, but they do not want the material developments which would bring it about: mixed neighborhoods , integrated schools, affirmative action, a revised history where the founding fathers are revealed as racist slave owners or union soldiers as racist conscripts who desert en masse whenever possible. Obama gets around all of this simply by existing: with a black president who transgresses not a single barrier other than that which is, shall we say, skin deep, we can have the counter-revolution and the revolution at once! White privilege is maintained precisely in material form, suffering not a single concession, not a single specifically black oriented economic program, and strengthened in cultural terms by the myth that it has now been compromised, that a Black President Is Progress Personified. Racist white Americans no longer have to stutter out that they have a black friend – they have done one better, they have voted for a black president!
America, historically, is a nation of white people. When it brushed up against no longer being a nation of white people, edged up against the idea of bringing minorities into the in group from out of the out group, the politics of the nation were so violently convulsed that the population began to believe that 'government is the problem', that if the government is going to try and push such a message then it ought to be disbanded, drowned to death. The material history of the nation over the past 40 years bears this idea out, that to wish for an America of all peoples and by all peoples, is to wish for some country other than America.
Edited by discipline ()
getfiscal posted:
good post. same but canada.
ive never read harveys history of neoliberalism, but from what i understand of it he posits that neoliberalism was never intellectually developed, as in, thought out then put into action. it was cobbled together ad hoc when new york fell into the hands of the bankers under ford, as they began to remember how effective capital can be when given a really free hand.
if this is true (and i suspect it is), then this explains well why neoliberalism was invented in America then spread from there to the west: only America had a broken up enough sense of class solidarity, caused by racial and other cultural conflicts, to allow neoliberalism to flourish. for neoliberalism to develop, workers as a group needed to be compromised in some way, brought down to earth from their progressive enshrinement as The Heart Of Democracy. the dislocation of the 60s and 70s gave the bankers that opportunity. that is to say the welfare queen narrative, which could be re-jiggered for any situation as needed (greedy public employees getting rich on YOUR dime! greedy union workers getting rich on YOUR dime! greedy bums (who secretly arent bums, secretly theyre all rich!) etc. etc.) .
discipline posted:
do you think it's possible that the social phenomenon of "last-pick aversion" has something to do with the USA white voter, that is, that the individual so dearly does not want to be at the bottom of the hole that he or she chooses to hand power up rather than down? they did some experiments where they gave everyone unequal amounts of money, then two extra dollars to give away. everyone gave the money down except for the second-to-lowest group who chose to give their money back to the richer individuals rather than find the lowest suddenly their equal or better. this explains a lot of what's up in deep south hellholes such as mississippi and alabama, but I don't know how it might apply to USAians as a whole.
malcom x and other black nationalists argued pretty convincingly (as well as in this book) that anti-black racism was just as strong outside of the south as it was inside the south, it was simply hidden better because there were so few black people around.
for example, read this. oregon had a law in its constitution against black people, including the provisions that they were banned from owning real estate, conducting business, or simply entering the state. if a black crewman jumped ship in oregon the law stated he was to be expelled and the captain fined $500. it was only repealed in 1927, after oregon voters voted against repealing it four separate times.
i once saw a pbs special from the 70s (not the one on youtube with malcom x, although that one is very good too) that interviewed a group of old black civil rights leaders, where they asked them to look back on the civil rights movement and what they thought of it. to a one they said that they had been fools - that they had thought that as soon as the government stopped mandating racism, stopped legislating segregation, then The Scar Of Racism would begin to heal. like in an enlightenment polemic, people would just naturally realize the whole thing was nonsense and, although it might take decades, begin to live together peaceably and reconcile.
what they saw instead was a vicious response by American whites who began to segregate voluntarily, as well as a revenant and powerful cultural racism, more dangerous now because of its subtlety.
the fact that American segregation is in some ways worse than it has been in decades, combined with the prevalence of structural and individual racist attitudes, and the tremendous amount of historical racism embedded in the nation, suggest to me at least that racism is probably one of our most enduring and tenacious institutions.
...because that's the point where most major systemic racism is at today and that's a huge leap/nothing to scoff at, even with the continuing horrible policies.
discipline posted:Tsargon posted:
malcom x and other black nationalists argued pretty convincingly (as well as in this book) that anti-black racism was just as strong outside of the south as it was inside the south, it was simply hidden better because there were so few black people around.I hear you 100% on that, I was just thinking of alabama and mississippi as examples because they are in such awful economic straits. the same thesis of last-picked aversion could go for any group anywhere in the USA, especially if they are economically vulnerable. as it was, black codes and legislated racism were used as bulwarks against class struggle. scientific racism was created to justify slavery. after all, indentured servants, poor white trash, etc have more in common with the poor black enslaved person than the rich plantation owner, and to this day the poor white trash has more in common with the undocumented worker than with whatever white guy represents their district in congress... even if they don't share the same language!
anyhoo, yeah racism isn't endemic to the south and that's pretty much incredibly evident to anyone from the south. I'm just saying that no matter who you are, there is CLINICAL SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCEthat proves you just might help the guy who's above you out just to stay one rung over the bottom.
see, im not so sure about that. the most patriotic people in the country tend to be among the poorest - and as soon as a white person says 'i have more in common with a poor black person than i do with a better off white person' then they throw away any sort of connection to the American nation state. as discussed in the op, America always has been and, as far as we can see in the future, always will be Super Racist. leftist-types like to say that the only reason the poor like the rich is because theyre convinced they one day will be rich, which is to say they have an (imagined) material incentive, but my personal experience of being a poor person + living in a whole valley of poor people argues otherwise. whites associate with whites the same way black people associate with obama despite the fact that obama has more economically in common with jewish bankers than anyone in detroit or birmingham.
discipline posted:Tsargon posted:
see, im not so sure about that. the most patriotic people in the country tend to be among the poorest - and as soon as a white person says 'i have more in common with a poor black person than i do with a better off white person' then they throw away any sort of connection to the American nation state. as discussed in the op, America always has been and, as far as we can see in the future, always will be Super Racist. leftist-types like to say that the only reason the poor like the rich is because theyre convinced they one day will be rich, which is to say they have an (imagined) material incentive, but my personal experience of being a poor person + living in a whole valley of poor people argues otherwise. whites associate with whites the same way black people associate with obama despite the fact that obama has more economically in common with jewish bankers than anyone in detroit or birmingham.yeah but that's what I'm saying... that american patriorism is wrapped up in that last-picked aversion, so it would be evident that the poorest are wrapped up in it, desperate to get ahead by the same means their forefathers did - putting someone else down.
i dont think its negative, tho. a black person associates with obama because obama Did It, He Made It, theyre proud in the same way one would be proud of an olympic athlete coming out of their own town or family.
frequently, American patriotism takes the form of phrases like 'the greatest country in the world' or 'the bastion of freedom' or other such things. theyre taking pride in the actions of their forefathers, for killing the indians and building the country and defeating hitler and so on and so on. its positive, being proud of previous actions, instead of negative, being afraid that if they stopped being American then they may as well be black.
discipline posted:
for more see: settlers by j. sakai
not everything is economics! man is man because he sees symbols in things, not because he labors!
The rallying cry became legal equality, but legal equality means nothing. There was constitutional legal equality as of 1865, but that didn't translate into actual equality. The 13th Amendment does note "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." thereby laying the foundation of the current prison-industrial complex. You can't have equality when you are still dependent on someone else for jobs, for food, for clothing and everything else you actually need. MLK began to talk more and more about economic equality, and when he did, he was killed for it.
Economic slavery and mental slavery both persist today. Black and Latino people are more than twice as likely to be unemployed, they are more likely to be in jail than university, etc. Black and Latino people still are under mental slavery, as truly, Whites are as well. We read about an America that never existed, our media is dominated by four or five men who work together to promote their own agenda, we are force-fed a culture that isn't our own (as Black and Brown people) and isn't fit for anyone. The education system is failing because it doesn't educate, at its very best, it only seeks to indoctrinate.
The fact is that America has never, never been run by the people or for the people. Ignoring race entirely, it has always been under the command of small groups of influential, wealthy people, promoting their own interest. It was never a Christian nation, but the majority of founding fathers were themselves Freemasons, and despised the spooky nature of Christianity. Other business interests, such as the large plantation holders, and later the industrial leaders and especially bankers, had influence as well. Today, anyone is a fool to say the people rule, when the candidate who spends the most money wins in 98% of all elections. The bankers, media-holders and other small and influential groups and lobbies control and make American policy.
Today, everything continues as it did 40 years ago, except many are too brainwashed to notice. Economically, things are worse for minorities today than it was then, and applying real wages, things are worse for everyone. Today, schools are still de-facto segregated, and it is an actual fact that the HBCUs are radically underfunded compared to predominately White universities. In the school district in which I live, they created two new high schools back when I was in HS, one was 98% White and one was 98% Black/Latino; and they had a school board meeting in which the Class Presidents were invited to sit on it, and the head of the school board was questioned if he thought the fact that they were basically re-segregating schools was a problem, to which he responded "No, it isn't a problem at all" and never invited any student representatives again. This man is still the head of the school board today.
The state's rights movement has always been about empowering White people at a local level to counter the rising population of minorities nation-wide. It is an attempt to save some areas. Mumia Abu Jamal mentioned that in the 1970s, when a lot of cities had started to go in the red, suddenly Blacks were becoming Mayors as the Whites ditched the ship to live in the suburbs. Today, the same thing happens with America and Obama.
Angel_X posted:
Racism has been turned in other forms now. I support MLK, and don't condemn the man, especially the man as he actually was, rather than how he is upheld today; but many of the people who claim they support him today ignore the successes and failures he encountered and talked about. The problem, as big as racism itself, was the long-term mental and economic ramifications. After slavery, there was no real land reform or economic redistribution program, nor was there ever an attempt to return Black people or the Red man (Native Americans, not the Wu Tang Clan member), to a mental state outside of slavery.
this is a chicken and egg argument though. blacks are hated because theyre poor and blacks are poor because theyre hated. the only way to resolve it is through government intervention, and the last time the government attempted to intervene created the long counter revolution. so blacks are hated because theyre poor etc. etc.
The rallying cry became legal equality, but legal equality means nothing. There was constitutional legal equality as of 1865, but that didn't translate into actual equality. The 13th Amendment does note "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." thereby laying the foundation of the current prison-industrial complex. You can't have equality when you are still dependent on someone else for jobs, for food, for clothing and everything else you actually need. MLK began to talk more and more about economic equality, and when he did, he was killed for it.
Economic slavery and mental slavery both persist today. Black and Latino people are more than twice as likely to be unemployed, they are more likely to be in jail than university, etc. Black and Latino people still are under mental slavery, as truly, Whites are as well. We read about an America that never existed, our media is dominated by four or five men who work together to promote their own agenda, we are force-fed a culture that isn't our own (as Black and Brown people) and isn't fit for anyone. The education system is failing because it doesn't educate, at its very best, it only seeks to indoctrinate.
again, as already discussed, the "America that never existed" is the resulting ideological paradox of both wanting to preserve the old America (which actually materially existed) while also talking a big game about equality and whatnot. this contradiction is maintained because, were there to be some big drive again for minority-specific economic / cultural advancement, then there would probably be another civil war.
The fact is that America has never, never been run by the people or for the people. Ignoring race entirely, it has always been under the command of small groups of influential, wealthy people, promoting their own interest. It was never a Christian nation, but the majority of founding fathers were themselves Freemasons, and despised the spooky nature of Christianity.
This is nonsense. Is a nations attributes determined forever by the individuals who founded it? the founding fathers were also feudal slave holders, is America a feudal slave nation? no irony please, it is a capitalist wage slave nation, which is of course very different. America is the organic sum of her parts, which is to say, white, christian, and xenophobic.
Other business interests, such as the large plantation holders, and later the industrial leaders and especially bankers, had influence as well. Today, anyone is a fool to say the people rule, when the candidate who spends the most money wins in 98% of all elections. The bankers, media-holders and other small and influential groups and lobbies control and make American policy.
who in this thread has said the people rule? i said that its ridiculous to assume that 95% of the nation has been honestly tricked for 40 years now - if American whites' interests really werent being served by their leaders, then there would be a political re-orientation to attempt to serve them, because any price is worth being elected. winning, thats the thing.
Today, everything continues as it did 40 years ago, except many are too brainwashed to notice. Economically, things are worse for minorities today than it was then, and applying real wages, things are worse for everyone. Today, schools are still de-facto segregated, and it is an actual fact that the HBCUs are radically underfunded compared to predominately White universities. In the school district in which I live, they created two new high schools back when I was in HS, one was 98% White and one was 98% Black/Latino; and they had a school board meeting in which the Class Presidents were invited to sit on it, and the head of the school board was questioned if he thought the fact that they were basically re-segregating schools was a problem, to which he responded "No, it isn't a problem at all" and never invited any student representatives again. This man is still the head of the school board today.
when there was an effort to integrate schools, it had to be forced through by the army because it was the least popular thing in the world. then, after the army left, the schools re-segregated. if people naturally werent racist and, if forced to live together, naturally would realize how great everyone else is, then this army-enforced integration should have worked.
its like the neo-con case for war against iraq: once the iraqis get a taste of free market capitalism (even if they must be bombed into accepting it) they will realize how wonderful it all is and beg for more. just as iraq is not materially suited to free market capitalism, neither is America is not materially suited to integrated schools, so it does not have integrated schools.
The state's rights movement has always been about empowering White people at a local level to counter the rising population of minorities nation-wide. It is an attempt to save some areas. Mumia Abu Jamal mentioned that in the 1970s, when a lot of cities had started to go in the red, suddenly Blacks were becoming Mayors as the Whites ditched the ship to live in the suburbs. Today, the same thing happens with America and Obama.
agreed. every white northerner during the civil war was non-racist in inverse proportion to how near black people were to them: if there were none nearby, then slavery was a great evil and blacks were just humans like us. if there were blacks nearby, however, they became demons that had to be excorsized as soon as possible.
therefore, by decentralizing the maintenance of the racist state, every white can simultaneously keep their own neighborhood clear of minorities while clucking their tongues at the disgusting racism of other communities. Everyone (except for minorities) Wins.
Tsargon posted:discipline posted:Tsargon posted:
see, im not so sure about that. the most patriotic people in the country tend to be among the poorest - and as soon as a white person says 'i have more in common with a poor black person than i do with a better off white person' then they throw away any sort of connection to the American nation state. as discussed in the op, America always has been and, as far as we can see in the future, always will be Super Racist. leftist-types like to say that the only reason the poor like the rich is because theyre convinced they one day will be rich, which is to say they have an (imagined) material incentive, but my personal experience of being a poor person + living in a whole valley of poor people argues otherwise. whites associate with whites the same way black people associate with obama despite the fact that obama has more economically in common with jewish bankers than anyone in detroit or birmingham.yeah but that's what I'm saying... that american patriorism is wrapped up in that last-picked aversion, so it would be evident that the poorest are wrapped up in it, desperate to get ahead by the same means their forefathers did - putting someone else down.
i dont think its negative, tho. a black person associates with obama because obama Did It, He Made It, theyre proud in the same way one would be proud of an olympic athlete coming out of their own town or family.
Black approval of Obama is way down because he hasn't helped out black communities at all. Black leaders have also been talking about how embarassed they are of him and how they've been hoodwinked etc. This is evidence that they expected some material support from him, and didn't just support him to see a black man in the White House.
Yes, in-general, a nation is almost always formed by the people who founded it. America today isn't an accident, but a logical movement from an original source. You mention it is White, Christian and Xenophobic, a sum of its parts, but all of these parts were laid in place in the beginning. The founders were Xenophobic and White, the majority of the White people were Christian, the inevitable result was what we see today. I was merely pointing out it has never been democratic, it has always been under the command of small groups. You, I believe, agree with this. You mention Whites benefit, with which I certainly agree, but I don't believe they benefit as much as they think they do. US economic and foreign policy puts them ahead of the so-called minorities (assuming the census is accurate), but it itself does not prioritize them, they are second-class in a society where a large segment of people are third.
A lot has to do with culture, it isn't that people are naturally racist, it is that their mind has been shaped and formed by a culture and people who are. Races and the concept of who exactly is or is not something, continuously changes. The Irish were considered basically black as of 100 years ago, while all non-White people were classified as Coloured. Today, there is an attempt to continuously break up coloured, and so Arabs are classified as White on the census, and so are Turks, there is the attempt to play Natives, Latinos, African-Americans as enemies against each other, and to seperate Caribbean from both, and to seperate African as well. It isn't a natural event, but an event being used by powers to divide and conquer. This is not implying that I even dislike the concept of educating our own, I only mind that the curriculum is still within the shackles of mental slavery, even in places like HBCUs. I have no problem either, with integrated schools, so long as it implies actual equality and not just subordination to a White culture.
babyfinland posted:Tsargon posted:discipline posted:Tsargon posted:
see, im not so sure about that. the most patriotic people in the country tend to be among the poorest - and as soon as a white person says 'i have more in common with a poor black person than i do with a better off white person' then they throw away any sort of connection to the American nation state. as discussed in the op, America always has been and, as far as we can see in the future, always will be Super Racist. leftist-types like to say that the only reason the poor like the rich is because theyre convinced they one day will be rich, which is to say they have an (imagined) material incentive, but my personal experience of being a poor person + living in a whole valley of poor people argues otherwise. whites associate with whites the same way black people associate with obama despite the fact that obama has more economically in common with jewish bankers than anyone in detroit or birmingham.yeah but that's what I'm saying... that american patriorism is wrapped up in that last-picked aversion, so it would be evident that the poorest are wrapped up in it, desperate to get ahead by the same means their forefathers did - putting someone else down.
i dont think its negative, tho. a black person associates with obama because obama Did It, He Made It, theyre proud in the same way one would be proud of an olympic athlete coming out of their own town or family.
Black approval of Obama is way down because he hasn't helped out black communities at all. Black leaders have also been talking about how embarassed they are of him and how they've been hoodwinked etc. This is evidence that they expected some material support from him, and didn't just support him to see a black man in the White House.
its still very high though, and i cant imagine will ever drop significantly below 80 or 85%. the point is it is primarily a positive association that white Americans make with their pasts, rather than a negative one they make because they're afraid of ending up like minorities (although that definitely is floating around, just significantly less so)
Angel_X posted:
I have never called for government intervention, and I never will. I think the solution is never taking that route. Many people took the route of MLK, they looked to integrate into a burning building, they look to the government to solve their problems. Even a lot of radicals, they call for reparations. All of that is nonsense, if we don't do for self, we will always do for somebody else. There is no reason that the Blackman in America should look to a White government to solve their problems when we can solve our own. My primary point was to point out how the government itself has simply changed the form of enslavement, not to say that we should appeal to Whites to free us from our economic and mental shackles they themselves put on us.
agreed. any solution involving both working together or whatever will inevitably collapse, as one will always eventually assert control over the other and re-initiate the cycle.
Yes, in-general, a nation is almost always formed by the people who founded it. America today isn't an accident, but a logical movement from an original source. You mention it is White, Christian and Xenophobic, a sum of its parts, but all of these parts were laid in place in the beginning. The founders were Xenophobic and White, the majority of the White people were Christian, the inevitable result was what we see today. I was merely pointing out it has never been democratic, it has always been under the command of small groups. You, I believe, agree with this. You mention Whites benefit, with which I certainly agree, but I don't believe they benefit as much as they think they do. US economic and foreign policy puts them ahead of the so-called minorities (assuming the census is accurate), but it itself does not prioritize them, they are second-class in a society where a large segment of people are third.
agreed. a while ago in a real news interview with a black nationalist he pointed out that finance was the whitest (counting jews as white) and malest industry in America, and although the host thought different the nationalist pressed ahead that insisting that it isnt a coincidence and i agree. for a long time now the focus has been on cutting up government jobs and state poverty aid in order to enrich the private sector. of all the different job sectors minorities are best represented in state work and draw the most benefit from state support, while the private sector is thoroughly white dominated, so although the last 40 years have been capitalism in action, there has also been a very active race war going on.
A lot has to do with culture, it isn't that people are naturally racist, it is that their mind has been shaped and formed by a culture and people who are.
disagreed. the people who run and control society are the rich, and the only section of society which really, genuinely doesnt give a shit about race is the rich. whenever white people go on strike the first thing the rich reach for (other than the national guard) is blacks, asians and mexicans. they gladly accept minorities into their circle whenever it is convenient, and for the past 40 years have been actively working to undermine white labor, to the benefit of colored labor.
the republican party is a good example: in 2007 george bush attempted to pass immigration reform, including an amnesty program estimated to effect 10+ million illegals and create an expanded guest worker program, and it was defeated in large part by his own party (a majority of republicans in both congress and the senate voted against it). of the two most important wings of the republican party (poor xenophobic whites and rich people) gwb cared about the rich far more, and thus attempted to further their interests (unending cheap labor) to the detriment of the other wing. the attempt failed, showing a great divide within the party: that divide has since been healed by republican big-wigs realizing that it is far more important to get elected than deliver on every promise to the rich, and have as such caved to the demands of their base and are now anti-immigration of any sort.
if the rich could just declare from on high via divine mandate a new American nation, it seems to me it would include open borders (except for indebted citizens), no sorts of legal protections for citizens, and probably such a vast raft of mandated purchases and taxes upon poor citizens that they would be better off as guest workers, rather than the native born that they were.
Races and the concept of who exactly is or is not something, continuously changes. The Irish were considered basically black as of 100 years ago, while all non-White people were classified as Coloured. Today, there is an attempt to continuously break up coloured, and so Arabs are classified as White on the census, and so are Turks, there is the attempt to play Natives, Latinos, African-Americans as enemies against each other, and to seperate Caribbean from both, and to seperate African as well. It isn't a natural event, but an event being used by powers to divide and conquer. This is not implying that I even dislike the concept of educating our own, I only mind that the curriculum is still within the shackles of mental slavery, even in places like HBCUs. I have no problem either, with integrated schools, so long as it implies actual equality and not just subordination to a White culture.
in every relation there is a greater and a lesser, thats simply the way of it. how could an integrated school, with a racially equitable curriculum, teach American history? did george washington father the nation or did he lead a slave holding elite in rebellion against trade restrictions? were the pioneers heroes or murderers? was ww2 fought against The Totalitarian Empire of nazi germany or so that the colonial holdings of france and england could be maintained? you cant have it both ways! either thomas jefferson was a great philosopher or he was a slave rapist, for the purposes of creating a coherent historical narrative (without which there would be no nation) he cant be both.
Tsargon posted:discipline posted:
for more see: settlers by j. sakainot everything is economics! man is man because he sees symbols in things, not because he labors!
This is the central problem of the above essay and what separates it from a genuine material analysis. At no point does it describe any connection between material factors and racism, as the latter is presumed to be a vital, independent force internal to Euro-American 'culture', (which is understood to be, essentially, nothing more than identification as a Euro-American). In place of a material explanation of events, we have this.
White Americans want equality, but they do not want the material developments which would bring it about: mixed neighborhoods , integrated schools, affirmative action, a revised history where the founding fathers are revealed as racist slave owners or union soldiers as racist conscripts who desert en masse whenever possible.
In no sense of the word can "a revised history" be considered material, this is a non-sequitor and I'm at a loss as to why it was included. The other factors do, in fact, describe material conditions, but no explanation is given for why Euro-Americans might be opposed to racial integration, or what benefits, (in terms of wealth or otherwise), this opposition might grant them. It is simply assumed their culture is naturally racist and stands in opposition to racial integration for no particular reason. This assumption undermines any potential for analytical benefit that might follow from the culturalist perspective it advances — while presented as a 'broader view' than vulgar economism, which assume 'everything is economics', it does not in fact contribute any novel insights into the ways social power functions independent of wealth. Rather, it sees social struggle as motivated by shadowy and ill-defined forces that are anything but material and, ultimately, inexplicable.
To touch briefly on the thesis, it is indisputable that racial, (and I would add, gender and religious), tensions in America have helped to galvanize reactionary politics. But any theory which explains the reactionary turn of the neo-liberal era in terms of a social base produced in the context of these struggles inevitably encounters three fundamental problems: that the reactionary turn has not been motivated by a social base but imposed by elites, has failed to advance the Euro-American majority either in terms of relative or absolute social power, and has been characterized by a trend towards deepening skepticism of said elites, particularly those of the political variety. The failure of the left to capitalize on this is the fault of no one but the left, and those who wish to instead locate this failure instead primarily in the Euro-American people make reactionary excuses for their own weakness.
So, what is this, in essence? It's the product of a petty-bourgeois ideology I've taken to calling 'left-reaction', produced by a self-described American Fascist with communist sympathies. At a later time I'll expand on what exactly this is later, but for now I'll explain how it functions in this particular context.
The essay above is primarily an anti-liberal screed. This is presented in anti-capitalist language, but in fact has more in common with the anti-enlightenment sentiments of the 19th century reactionaries and functions as a stand-in for the anti-communism of fascism, (which is now untenable given the collapse of global communism). It promotes a culturalist understanding of social conflict that purports to explain more than Marxist economism but in fact does nothing of the sort, instead ignoring or actively obscuring class struggle in favor of nebulous cultural factors that are never explained in any depth. It locates the failures of leftist politics not in the left but in the people, particularly the lower classes, to whom it ascribes a wholly reactionary character and views with contempt. Its leftist language disguises the reactionary ideals that motivate it, while its construction within the leftist political framework make it incompatible with the traditional right; it is something new, left-reaction.
Also I'm curious what distinguishes "left-reaction" from the far right generally?
Lessons posted:Tsargon posted:discipline posted:
for more see: settlers by j. sakainot everything is economics! man is man because he sees symbols in things, not because he labors!
This is the central problem of the above essay and what separates it from a genuine material analysis. At no point does it describe any connection between material factors and racism, as the latter is presumed to be a vital, independent force internal to Euro-American 'culture', (which is understood to be, essentially, nothing more than identification as a Euro-American). In place of a material explanation of events, we have this.
White Americans want equality, but they do not want the material developments which would bring it about: mixed neighborhoods , integrated schools, affirmative action, a revised history where the founding fathers are revealed as racist slave owners or union soldiers as racist conscripts who desert en masse whenever possible.
In no sense of the word can "a revised history" be considered material, this is a non-sequitor and I'm at a loss as to why it was included. The other factors do, in fact, describe material conditions, but no explanation is given for why Euro-Americans might be opposed to racial integration, or what benefits, (in terms of wealth or otherwise), this opposition might grant them. It is simply assumed their culture is naturally racist and stands in opposition to racial integration for no particular reason. This assumption undermines any potential for analytical benefit that might follow from the culturalist perspective it advances — while presented as a 'broader view' than vulgar economism, which assume 'everything is economics', it does not in fact contribute any novel insights into the ways social power functions independent of wealth. Rather, it sees social struggle as motivated by shadowy and ill-defined forces that are anything but material and, ultimately, inexplicable.
To touch briefly on the thesis, it is indisputable that racial, (and I would add, gender and religious), tensions in America have helped to galvanize reactionary politics. But any theory which explains the reactionary turn of the neo-liberal era in terms of a social base produced in the context of these struggles inevitably encounters three fundamental problems: that the reactionary turn has not been motivated by a social base but imposed by elites, has failed to advance the Euro-American majority either in terms of relative or absolute social power, and has been characterized by a trend towards deepening skepticism of said elites, particularly those of the political variety. The failure of the left to capitalize on this is the fault of no one but the left, and those who wish to instead locate this failure instead primarily in the Euro-American people make reactionary excuses for their own weakness.
So, what is this, in essence? It's the product of a petty-bourgeois ideology I've taken to calling 'left-reaction', produced by a self-described American Fascist with communist sympathies. At a later time I'll expand on what exactly this is later, but for now I'll explain how it functions in this particular context.
The essay above is primarily an anti-liberal screed. This is presented in anti-capitalist language, but in fact has more in common with the anti-enlightenment sentiments of the 19th century reactionaries and functions as a stand-in for the anti-communism of fascism, (which is now untenable given the collapse of global communism). It promotes a culturalist understanding of social conflict that purports to explain more than Marxist economism but in fact does nothing of the sort, instead ignoring or actively obscuring class struggle in favor of nebulous cultural factors that are never explained in any depth. It locates the failures of leftist politics not in the left but in the people, particularly the lower classes, to whom it ascribes a wholly reactionary character and views with contempt. Its leftist language disguises the reactionary ideals that motivate it, while its construction within the leftist political framework make it incompatible with the traditional right; it is something new, left-reaction.
1. im not attempting to perform material analysis! i simply utilize it to poke holes in the sort of people who ostensibly utilize materialist analysis in their reckoning of modern politics.
2. "the reactionary turn has not been motivated by a social base but imposed by elites," this is one of the primary points of contention in the essay: Americans have voted, and voted with enthusiasm, every time a neoliberal candidate has arrived on the scene. leftist types say 'well theyre voting against their interests, theyre idiots, they dont have anyone else to vote for, and besides theyre brainwashed' which is all to say: they have no say in the matters of government, everything is "imposed by elites."
i disagree. obviously every American doesnt grasp every issue precisely, or even possibly any issue precisely, but if Americans really were being tricked then don't you think they would have learned what was up after 40 years? 8 presidents? two distinct generations, coming up on three? it beggars belief to imagine that 350 million people have been helplessly hoodwinked every two years for 40 years, its the same sort of nonsense spun by ww2 revisionists who attempted to rehabilitate germany by explaining that, actually, very few germans were nazis, and everyone was just tricked into supporting them!
look for this same sort of logic to be employed in a few more years when it turns out that there were actually very few zionists in israel, and really most israelis didnt know what was going on in the occupied territories! they were fooled!
3. "has failed to advance the Euro-American majority either in terms of relative or absolute social power" come now, you dont really believe that race relations havent budged an inch over the past 40 years, do you? that the destruction of affirmative action, welfare, black identity movements, the ability for Serious People to discuss equality in any capacity other than congratulating America for having achieved it, doesnt reflect a worsening imbalance of racial power in These Here United States?
4. "and has been characterized by a trend towards deepening skepticism of said elites, particularly those of the political variety." come on, this is simply ridiculous. in this very thread we have discussed how the shift of political power from the Dangerously Diverse federal government to the private sector amounts to a tremendous stride in race war. neoliberal types actively work to discredit the government because doing so strengthens the position of the private sector, and most specifically finance, the whitest and malest sector of the American economy.
5. you say my essay is ridiculous because it places the blame on the people instead of the left - do you disagree then that the material foundations of a given society determine the character of its politics? do you deny base and superstructure? if so, then you cant just say 'well, its not the fault of the American people that there is no American left, its the fault of the left' - your diagnosis is actually far more conservative than my own, for where i see social forces at work, you see individuals!
for you, evidently, the fault of of the left lays with the left, which has refused to organize - this seems patently ridiculous in materialist terms. if the American people were materially suited to leftism, that is, if the base of American productive relations was suited to maintaining a leftist-type political superstructure, then there would be a leftist-type political superstructure! case closed! that there is not means that either we are in a brief, transitory period, where America is re-orienting towards something more suited to it (such as the restoration of napoleon 3, or in russia during the brief period between the october manifesto and the revolution), or there is something amiss with the American people, with the structure of American society.
and im not a reactionary (altho yes theres lots of reactionary elements in what i say, and i certainly hate liberals + that great den of liberalism, the enlightenment), im a conservative revolutionary. dont just jumble everyone on the right together, its imprecise.
babyfinland posted:
You've simply displaced the "shadowy and inexplicable forces" to the left and its failure, lessons. You'll need to elaborate as to why this is a flaw in the essay rather than a simple difference of ideological framework between yourself and the author.
That's not really true, even if I'm incorrect about the left's failure that does not imply the Euro-American majority is inherently reactionary or that this is a question of 'ideological framework'. It's a matter of fact, and one that the OP makes no genuine effort to demonstrate, but simply assumes.
Also I'm curious what distinguishes "left-reaction" from the far right generally?
I don't want to entirely derail this thread with my own theories on an unrelated topic, but essentially it's an attempted syncretic union of reactionary ideals with leftist political and ideological structures. It's a fairly broad term and can describe people from National Bolsheviks to Third Positionists to even people like you and khamsek, in my opinion.
babyfinland posted:
Also like I think it's sort of obvious and self evident why a society founded on the genocide of an entire continent might be considered fundamentally and constitutionally racist
This is essentially a matter of definition and sidesteps the question of how this racism reproduces itself, implying American society is racist by inertia. It is incompatible with a materialist analysis or, to be frank, any sort of useful analysis at all. While the origins of white supremacy in America are no doubt lie in the Empire's settler history, it is not a static institution established in the distant past, but a dynamic, contemporary phenomenon that has reformed itself and thrived despite repeated historical challenges to its form.
Lessons posted:babyfinland posted:
You've simply displaced the "shadowy and inexplicable forces" to the left and its failure, lessons. You'll need to elaborate as to why this is a flaw in the essay rather than a simple difference of ideological framework between yourself and the author.That's not really true, even if I'm incorrect about the left's failure that does not imply the Euro-American majority is inherently reactionary or that this is a question of 'ideological framework'. It's a matter of fact, and one that the OP makes no genuine effort to demonstrate, but simply assumes.
He's articulating an explanation for the failure of the left. You're responding by saying no no no, the real reason the left has failed in the US is because it failed.
Lessons posted:babyfinland posted:
Also like I think it's sort of obvious and self evident why a society founded on the genocide of an entire continent might be considered fundamentally and constitutionally racistThis is essentially a matter of definition and sidesteps the question of how this racism reproduces itself, implying American society is racist by inertia. It is incompatible with a materialist analysis or, to be frank, any sort of useful analysis at all. While the origins of white supremacy in America are no doubt lie in the Empire's settler history, it is not a static institution established in the distant past, but a dynamic, contemporary phenomenon that has reformed itself and thrived despite repeated historical challenges to its form.
You will have to elaborate. You say this is a "matter of definition". Then we should define our terms usefully and pertinently. I don't know why you have chosen to define American society in such a way that conflicts with the analysis in the OP, it seems to me that it's coherent enough that you could at least take it on its own terms. "Incompatible with a materialist analysis ... or any sort of useful analysis at all" is a failure of your own "definition", not the article.
You can disagree with the author ideologically but you should engage him critically, not on the plane of dogma about "materialist analysis" and pedantry. I think you offer a fruitful perspective to this conversation so I'm trying to direct you to the most productive end.
Angel_X posted:
I still think the race problem is primarily played by the powerful. It isn't just that they are rich, there are rich people with very little power, or very little relative to the others. It is that there are small groups of the most powerful of them, the top bankers and media holders and industrialists, who actively do plan policy and do plan out culture; they decide what is popular and what isn't and what ideologies are to be pushed onto the broader population. You mentioned they accept other races when convenient, which is something I partially agree with. They accept them for purposes of maintaining their rule of divide-and-conquer. However, much of the actual racism present ideologically, can be actively traced to their attempts to present such images and mentalities to people and push that agenda. Playing up a variety of divisions, using emotional rule, by playing on the anger and fear of groups to play them against each other, that has always ensured the rule by that small elite.
I think the fundamental difference between you and the author is that he feels that White society is something that can be revitalized and should be defended and that you disagree? Correct me if I'm wrong, either of you
babyfinland posted:Angel_X posted:
I still think the race problem is primarily played by the powerful. It isn't just that they are rich, there are rich people with very little power, or very little relative to the others. It is that there are small groups of the most powerful of them, the top bankers and media holders and industrialists, who actively do plan policy and do plan out culture; they decide what is popular and what isn't and what ideologies are to be pushed onto the broader population. You mentioned they accept other races when convenient, which is something I partially agree with. They accept them for purposes of maintaining their rule of divide-and-conquer. However, much of the actual racism present ideologically, can be actively traced to their attempts to present such images and mentalities to people and push that agenda. Playing up a variety of divisions, using emotional rule, by playing on the anger and fear of groups to play them against each other, that has always ensured the rule by that small elite.I think the fundamental difference between you and the author is that he feels that White society is something that can be revitalized and should be defended and that you disagree? Correct me if I'm wrong, either of you
Yeah, that's pretty much it. I just really like America and want it to be developed peaceably and productively, and it seems to me that the weird fracturing of America's shared cultural identity due to "the race problem" sabotages everything else.
I think that America is doomed unless she reforms herself as a just and equitable society, I hold that it is possible, albeit not probable, that America can be saved as a territorial entity. I even hold that it is possible for the Asiatic and European races to coexist and live together in equality, although this itself implies the eradication of the current White mindset present in both.
Tsargon posted:
2. "the reactionary turn has not been motivated by a social base but imposed by elites," this is one of the primary points of contention in the essay: Americans have voted, and voted with enthusiasm, every time a neoliberal candidate has arrived on the scene. leftist types say 'well theyre voting against their interests, theyre idiots, they dont have anyone else to vote for, and besides theyre brainwashed' which is all to say: they have no say in the matters of government, everything is "imposed by elites."
i disagree. obviously every American doesnt grasp every issue precisely, or even possibly any issue precisely, but if Americans really were being tricked then don't you think they would have learned what was up after 40 years? 8 presidents? two distinct generations, coming up on three? it beggars belief to imagine that 350 million people have been helplessly hoodwinked every two years for 40 years, its the same sort of nonsense spun by ww2 revisionists who attempted to rehabilitate germany by explaining that, actually, very few germans were nazis, and everyone was just tricked into supporting them!
look for this same sort of logic to be employed in a few more years when it turns out that there were actually very few zionists in israel, and really most israelis didnt know what was going on in the occupied territories! they were fooled!
It is not necessarily the case that Euro-Americans are either hapless dupes or enthusiastic supporters of the established order. This is a simplistic analysis lacking in nuance. It ignores, totally, both the influence of capital and the military-industrial complex over American politics and the capacity of powerful political parties to mobilize the populace in elections. It also leads to some absurd conclusions. If the voting patterns of Euro-Americans are to be taken as evidence of their fundamental reactionary and racist nature, aren't we also obligated to conclude the same for members of the Black nation, (who vote for the same neoliberal candidates, though historically at a slightly lower rate)? This is a self-defeating thesis. There is no reason to assume that electoral results are perfectly representative of popular will and good reasons, like the one above, to conclude they are not, and the only reason you're claiming otherwise is because no good arguments exist to support your reactionary claims.
3. "has failed to advance the Euro-American majority either in terms of relative or absolute social power" come now, you dont really believe that race relations havent budged an inch over the past 40 years, do you? that the destruction of affirmative action, welfare, black identity movements, the ability for Serious People to discuss equality in any capacity other than congratulating America for having achieved it, doesnt reflect a worsening imbalance of racial power in These Here United States?
4. "and has been characterized by a trend towards deepening skepticism of said elites, particularly those of the political variety." come on, this is simply ridiculous. in this very thread we have discussed how the shift of political power from the Dangerously Diverse federal government to the private sector amounts to a tremendous stride in race war. neoliberal types actively work to discredit the government because doing so strengthens the position of the private sector, and most specifically finance, the whitest and malest sector of the American economy.
The last forty years have been characterized by massive class warfare against working people of all races. It's arguable either way whether this has increased the inbalance between lower-class Euro-Americans and members of the Black nation, but what is indisputable is that both now control a smaller share of both the wealth and broader social power than before it began.
5. you say my essay is ridiculous because it places the blame on the people instead of the left - do you disagree then that the material foundations of a given society determine the character of its politics? do you deny base and superstructure? if so, then you cant just say 'well, its not the fault of the American people that there is no American left, its the fault of the left' - your diagnosis is actually far more conservative than my own, for where i see social forces at work, you see individuals!
for you, evidently, the fault of of the left lays with the left, which has refused to organize - this seems patently ridiculous in materialist terms. if the American people were materially suited to leftism, that is, if the base of American productive relations was suited to maintaining a leftist-type political superstructure, then there would be a leftist-type political superstructure! case closed! that there is not means that either we are in a brief, transitory period, where America is re-orienting towards something more suited to it (such as the restoration of napoleon 3, or in russia during the brief period between the october manifesto and the revolution), or there is something amiss with the American people, with the structure of American society.
I'm honestly not that keen on notions of base and superstructure, but in any case this is a butchery of these concepts, which you do not understand. In fact, Marx introduced them almost specifically to refute the sort of argument that you're making. In the section where he does so, he say, "Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production". The fact that Americans, white and black, rich and poor, are voting for neoliberal candidates explains nothing in itself under this schema, because political consciousness is part of the superstructure. To understand what is happening we would have to examine the material conditions that underlay this consciousness, and since you have nothing to offer there, there is nothing to discuss.
and im not a reactionary (altho yes theres lots of reactionary elements in what i say, and i certainly hate liberals + that great den of liberalism, the enlightenment), im a conservative revolutionary. dont just jumble everyone on the right together, its imprecise.
lmao
babyfinland posted:
He's articulating an explanation for the failure of the left. You're responding by saying no no no, the real reason the left has failed in the US is because it failed.
You can phrase it however you like, but I'm neither obligated to explain nor interested in explaining my owns views on the left in America. Right now I'm content to point out that Tsargon's explanation is a poor one.
You will have to elaborate. You say this is a "matter of definition". Then we should define our terms usefully and pertinently. I don't know why you have chosen to define American society in such a way that conflicts with the analysis in the OP, it seems to me that it's coherent enough that you could at least take it on its own terms. "Incompatible with a materialist analysis ... or any sort of useful analysis at all" is a failure of your own "definition", not the article.
You can disagree with the author ideologically but you should engage him critically, not on the plane of dogma about "materialist analysis" and pedantry. I think you offer a fruitful perspective to this conversation so I'm trying to direct you to the most productive end.
Apparently you're misunderstanding the context of that statement, I wasn't talking about the OP, but rather the post by you that I quoted. I also gave you explicit reasons for why I believed that, so I'm not sure why you're accusing me of being pedantic and dogmatic there.
Lessons posted:
It is not necessarily the case that Euro-Americans are either hapless dupes or enthusiastic supporters of the established order. This is a simplistic analysis lacking in nuance.
ah, then "the rich control absolutely everything?" isnt a simplistic analysis?
It ignores, totally, both the influence of capital and the military-industrial complex over American politics and the capacity of powerful political parties to mobilize the populace in elections. It also leads to some absurd conclusions. If the voting patterns of Euro-Americans are to be taken as evidence of their fundamental reactionary and racist nature, aren't we also obligated to conclude the same for members of the Black nation, (who vote for the same neoliberal candidates, though historically at a slightly lower rate)?
i never said that everyone supports the rightists full throttle (in fact quite the opposite, i said that "obviously every American doesnt grasp every issue precisely, or even possibly any issue precisely", suggesting that trickery and deception do play a role, simply not the only role. it simply beggars belief to accept that a nation of 350 million has been completely tricked for 4 decades.
take, for example, bush's push for immigration reform, which i have mentioned before in this thread, or his push for social security privatization. if the American people were completely passive, and accepted whatever the rich commanded unflinchingly, then both of these initiatives should have passed: immigration reform would be to the benefit of every industry that relies upon migrant labor, and social security privatization has been the holy grail of finance for decades.
if the American political process was wholly the domain of the 1%, and if the rich could get anyone to vote for anything at any time (as you seem to claim), then, again, both of these should have passed with flying colors. instead, they were the two great failures of the bush presidency, and reflect what ive been trying to get at in this essay: American politics are still responsive to the people, just in a very limited and circumscribed way.
This is a self-defeating thesis. There is no reason to assume that electoral results are perfectly representative of popular will and good reasons, like the one above, to conclude they are not, and the only reason you're claiming otherwise is because no good arguments exist to support your reactionary claims.
could you quote specifically where i said "electoral results are perfectly representative of popular will and good reasons"? if i recall correctly i actually produced a highly psychologized and mythologized story of racial anxieties and national identities, rather than bluntly stating that everything that happens in America happens because THE PEOPLE wish it to. beautiful little strawman, but seriously, dont do it again.
The last forty years have been characterized by massive class warfare against working people of all races. It's arguable either way whether this has increased the inbalance between lower-class Euro-Americans and members of the Black nation, but what is indisputable is that both now control a smaller share of both the wealth and broader social power than before it began.
i am not contesting this, i never said it was in the economic interests of white people to keep voting for neoliberals, instead that it was in the cultural interests of white people to do so. i am not performing materialist analysis! i am not a marxist!
I'm honestly not that keen on notions of base and superstructure, but in any case this is a butchery of these concepts, which you do not understand. In fact, Marx introduced them almost specifically to refute the sort of argument that you're making. In the section where he does so, he say, "Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production". The fact that Americans, white and black, rich and poor, are voting for neoliberal candidates explains nothing in itself under this schema, because political consciousness is part of the superstructure. To understand what is happening we would have to examine the material conditions that underlay this consciousness, and since you have nothing to offer there, there is nothing to discuss.
you say i misunderstand the material basis of American society, that i am incorrectly diagnosing why there is no American left, that i am performing "simplistic analysis lacking in nuance", but as far as i can tell the reason you think there is no American left is because there is no American left. youve enigmatically criticized me for locating "the failures of leftist politics not in the left", suggesting then that the failures of the left lies within the left itself.
but what does that mean, and please, be specific! are leftists just lazy? do they simply not have the gumption to bootstrap themselves to revolutionary glory? do the American people secretly call out for socialism but, finding no lenins in their midst, retire unhappily to their ps3's, as i posited *people like you* seem to think they do without any evidence to show for it in the op?
lmao
youve offered no critiques of value here, youve simply A) criticized me for not being a marxist and then B) refused to explicate the 'correct marxist line' on the long counter-revolution, simply assuming that your, presumably non-"simplistic", and extremely "nuanced" analysis, of "the rich done it! the rich done all of it!" is so exceedingly obvious that it doesnt even need to be discussed.
for an lf-type, you seem extremely reticent to accept the idea that it is in the interests of racist white Americans to perpetuate a racist white American government.
Lessons posted:babyfinland posted:
He's articulating an explanation for the failure of the left. You're responding by saying no no no, the real reason the left has failed in the US is because it failed.You can phrase it however you like, but I'm neither obligated to explain nor interested in explaining my owns views on the left in America. Right now I'm content to point out that Tsargon's explanation is a poor one.
hahahaha, first you say without any sort of support that i am wrong, and then point blank refuse to provide any support because you are not "obligated" to do so.
if you just wanted to register how upset you are that theres a person out there thinking non-marxistly about things, why didnt you just goatse the thread and save yourself the trouble of writing a bunch of words.
Lessons posted:babyfinland posted:
He's articulating an explanation for the failure of the left. You're responding by saying no no no, the real reason the left has failed in the US is because it failed.You can phrase it however you like, but I'm neither obligated to explain nor interested in explaining my owns views on the left in America. Right now I'm content to point out that Tsargon's explanation is a poor one.
You will have to elaborate. You say this is a "matter of definition". Then we should define our terms usefully and pertinently. I don't know why you have chosen to define American society in such a way that conflicts with the analysis in the OP, it seems to me that it's coherent enough that you could at least take it on its own terms. "Incompatible with a materialist analysis ... or any sort of useful analysis at all" is a failure of your own "definition", not the article.
You can disagree with the author ideologically but you should engage him critically, not on the plane of dogma about "materialist analysis" and pedantry. I think you offer a fruitful perspective to this conversation so I'm trying to direct you to the most productive end.
Apparently you're misunderstanding the context of that statement, I wasn't talking about the OP, but rather the post by you that I quoted. I also gave you explicit reasons for why I believed that, so I'm not sure why you're accusing me of being pedantic and dogmatic there.
jesus christ
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/09/richard-kline-progressively-losing.html