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

Sat Aug 2 23:24:46 CDT 2008

once, many many moons ago, when i was a young radical whippersnapper,
i happened to be on the amtrak train between champaign and chicago,
and fell into a conversation about politics with a middle-aged
african-american guy.

in the course of the conversation, i expounded views not dissimilar to
the ones that carl is currently expounding about affirmative action.

he patiently waited for me to finish ranting, and said,

"well, you have a point...on the other hand..." - here he paused for
dramatic effect - "we _are_ sitting together on this train, having
this conversation." then he smiled.

of course, i had to concede that he also had a point.

i think that interaction permanently cured me of being ultra-left
about affirmative action.

On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 5:08 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
> It is, as I say, at best a stop-gap, a temporary measure to correct some
> small
> part of historic exploitation -- not to end the exploitation itself, which
> is
> endemic to capitalism.  In fact, affirmative action accepts that
> exploitation in
> principle while it tries to get a better deal for those "identified" by
> race,
> gender, etc. (which is why it's generally been resented by the white working
> class).
>
> In the spring tide of American socialism, more than a century ago, one of
> the
> leading US capitalists, Jay Gould, said, "I can always hire one half of the
> American working class -- to kill the other half." That ruling class policy
> accounts for the United States' having one of the bloodiest labor histories
> in
> the world.  And affirmative action was the acceptable face of that policy.
>
> There were those who said a generation ago -- only half in jest -- that when
> the
> revolution finally came, the barricades of the old order would be defended
> by
> those blacks and women who'd made it under affirmative action...
>
> The history of identity politics in the US is pretty clear.  It was the
> position
> to which soi-disant progressives retreated when the revolutionary and
> transformative goals of "the sixties" (and well into the 1970s) were given
> up.
>
> When the assault of neoliberalism began to look like winning, ca. 30 years
> ago,
> and progressives gave up class-based politics in defeat, there was a rather
> unseemly scramble on the Left as groups looked for other, non-class
> identities
> as bases for progressive political action -- notably women, people of color,
> ethnics, sexual minorities, etc. But the search was predicated on the
> conclusion
> that no fundamental transformation of class relations was possible (or
> perhaps
> even desirable).
>
> By the 1990s there was a general condemnation on the Left of a trinity of
> oppressions -- by gender, race and class -- but little recognition that they
> were not alike.  In principle, the first two can be solved by reconciliation
> (affirmative action, if you like), however difficult that is in practice.
>  But
> oppression by class cannot be solved that way.  Exploiter and exploited
> cannot
> be reconciled -- their formal antagonism is what makes the system go.
> (Crudely,
> owners must purchase labor as cheaply as possible while workers must sell it
> as
> expensively as possible.)  Exploitation by class can be solved only by the
> liquidation of the exploiter (the social role, not necessarily the person).
>
> Staring into this abyss, the modern left has generally preferred to take the
> sop-gap options offered, and it's only inconvenient people like Benn
> Michaels
> (and three centuries of economists who tried to puzzle out how capitalism
> worked) who point out that diversity offers a false vision of social justice
> --
> by allowing us to neglect the difference that really matters, that between
> rich
> and poor, and its source.  --CGE
>
>
> Robert Naiman wrote:
>>
>> Now it seems like you're saying that actually, support of affirmative
>> action
>> *is* "the Left" position, but it shouldn't be. Just clarifying. So I
>> didn't
>> miss the meeting.
>>
>> On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 7:11 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. 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
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing
>>>>>> list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>>>>> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing
>>>>>> list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>>>>> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing
>>>>> list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>>>> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
>>
>

-- 
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org

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