[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. In the last generation the American left, 
such as it is, has been bought off by tokenism to give up its critique of class.

People of color managing state capitalism is a rather limited victory for the 
Left in the US -- especially when the price has been the Left's diminuendo of 
the critique of capitalism as it was a generation (or a century) ago.  The Left 
is much further Right than it was then -- and it was done not with a meeting but 
in rather embarrassed silence.


Robert Naiman wrote:
> When was the meeting where it was decided that "the Left" doesn't
> support affirmative action? Was there a meeting notice? I must have
> missed it.
> 
> On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 5:56 AM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
>> "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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>>>
>>>
>>>
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