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

[C. G. Estabrook]

"Affirmative action," with its overtone of courageous dedication, is an
advertiser's phrase, a weasel-word.  The British have a more accurate term for
it -- "positive discrimination."

Most Americans agree that discrimination, negative or positive, is unjust. 
That's why referenda against it have succeeded across the country.  McCain's 
alliance with this sentiment -- especially if his opponent is regarded as an 
"affirmative action baby" (see Stephen Carter's book by that title) -- may help 
to make him president.

It would seem to me that the effective counter to McCain's position is a more 
serious call for social justice and equality, at home and abroad -- far more 
serious that the accommodationist Obama is willing to make, as his book shows.


Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
> So the train incident was an example of (and demonstrating the necessity for)
> affirmative action? Because it just as easily could have been an example of
> the sufficiency of the civil rights amendment (i e no necessity for
> affirmative action), so I wasn't sure... As I understand it, affirmative
> action doesn't (always) require a quota based on race and/or gender, nor does
> it preclude taking socio-economic factors into account as well. No such thing
> as a utopia nor a perfect system for choosing and eliminating candidates, but
> I don't understand why it isn't fair and advisable to try to level the 
> playing field as much as possible. --Jenifer
> 
> --- On *Sun, 8/3/08, Robert Naiman /<naiman.uiuc at gmail.com>/* wrote:
> 
> From: Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Will
> I.P. elect McCain? To: kmedina at illinois.edu Cc: "peace-discuss"
> <peace-discuss at anti-war.net> Date: Sunday, August 3, 2008, 8:18 AM
> 
> My point was that in considering how dogmatic and strident to be about the
> insignificance of "at best stopgap" reforms, it's ok to give some deference
> to the question of whether one belongs to the category(s) of people who have
> benefited or were intended to benefit from the "at best stopgap" reforms.
> 
> if the folks who were the stated intended beneficiaries of such reforms, by
> and large, hold them to be meaningful, that ought to cool somewhat the ardor
> of those who wish to dismiss them as meaningless.
> 
> On Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 5:41 AM, Karen Medina <kmedina at illinois.edu> wrote:
>> 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