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

Sun Aug 3 05:41:24 CDT 2008

Jenifer, 

I think Bob Naiman's point is that sometimes the rules help make the change, and without them things would be much the same as they were.

Societal rules, like seggregation, do take a long time to reverse. And sometimes we need rules like affirmative action to counter the seggretation rules. Does affirmative action work? Well at least we can talk to each other on the train.

Knowing when to let the rules fade is not easy.

I'll just point out a few other things that society still accepts without much of a fight:
* Women still do not have equal pay. In some places, yes, but overall, not yet.
* Neighbors still look the other way with spouse abuse, elder abuse, and child abuse. 
* Homeless people are treated as trash.

Yes, the rules that are supposed to move us in the right direction can be taken advantage of (just as an example, a woman can wrongly accuse a man of sexual assault in order to hurt the man), and that is most unfortunate. But, overall, we hope that the rules help more than they hurt.

There are many places that we have given power to the person who society has made weak. Yes, the new power will be abused. All power is abused. 

Somehow, we need to find a balance. 

-karen medina

---- Original message ----
>Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 23:24:46 -0500
>From: "Robert Naiman" <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com>  
>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Will I.P. elect McCain?  
>To: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
>Cc: peace-discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
>
>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
>
>Ambassador Pickering on Iran Talks and Multinational Enrichment
>http://youtube.com/watch?v=kGZFrFxVg8A
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