[Peace-discuss] Will I.P. elect McCain?

[C. G. Estabrook]

"Affirmative action" is at best a stop-gap that risks substituting the pursuit 
of diversity for the pursuit of equality.  The latter is the Left position. --CGE

Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
> The fact that a ban on affirmative action has never lost makes me 
> question the stats that say the electorate is to the left of the 
> government. Terrible news, terrible for all of us if the prediction 
> holds true.
>  --Jenifer
>  
> 
> --- On *Fri, 8/1/08, C. G. Estabrook /<galliher at uiuc.edu>/* wrote:
> 
>     From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu>
>     Subject: [Peace-discuss] Will I.P. elect McCain?
>     To: "peace-discuss" <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
>     Date: Friday, August 1, 2008, 7:43 PM
> 
>     "On Sunday, McCain came out in favor of an Arizona civil rights initiative
>     that 
>     would outlaw any state discrimination either for or against folks, based on 
>     race, gender or national origin. Obama said he was 'disappointed' with
>     McCain 
>     and told UNITY he favors affirmative action 'when properly structured.'
> 
>     "The Arizona referendum banning preferential treatment based on race is
>     also on 
>     the ballot in the swing state of Colorado. It won in California in 1996, in 
>     Washington in 2000 and in Michigan in the great Democratic sweep of 2006. It
>     has 
>     never lost, and may just win McCain Colorado, and with it the nation."
> 
>     There would be a certain paradox in McCain's becoming president as a result
>     of 
>     identity politics -- which begins with the notion that the categories of
>     gender, 
>     race and class are fixed.
> 
>     Self-described progressives in the last generation have replaced campaigns 
>     against economic inequality with campaigns against discrimination within 
>     economic groups -- as inequality increased.  Thus it was considered a victory
>     to 
>     get women into West Point or people of color onto the board of General Electric
> 
>     (instead of abolishing those institutions).
> 
>     The old Left goals were quietly abandoned with the onslaught of Neoliberalism, 
>     thirty years ago.  Redistribution was shelved in favor of
>     "recognition." (It's 
>     true that a few, like M.L. King, went the other way, but they were marginalized
> 
>     -- with prejudice, in his case.)
> 
>     Some people noticed what was going on: see, e.g., Walter Benn Michaels'
>     "The 
>     Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore
>     Inequality" 
>     (2006).  But a President McCain would be a rather large chicken come home to 
>     roost.  --CGE
> 
> 
> 
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