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

[LAURIE]

> Societal rules, like seggregation, do take a long time to reverse. And
> sometimes we need rules like affirmative action to counter the
> seggretation rules.

Without intended to do so, you raise an interesting question to ponder.  Why
do some societal rules take longer to get rid of than others?  Segregation
and various forms of societally  - and often governmentally - sanctioned
rules take decades - if not centuries - to reverse, while others like
affirmative action undergo reversing from the day they were established and
seem to get undone within a couple of decades.  One sees a similar trend
when it comes to the societal and governmental support and subsidization of
corporate monopolies (under various names and guises) versus the societal
and governmental support of unions.  The main counter example is probably
Social Security which is taking longer than the elites thought to dismantle
or render ineffective.  This might be because they found a way to make a
buck off of this program.

The easy answer is that the powerful elites support and have vested
interests in maintaining the long lasting rules and in destroying the short
lasting ones; whereas, the masses do not really know or support their own
interests - be it from ignorance or from management of the information by
the elites.  However, surely the easy answer cannot be the only answer and
may not even be the most significant one.





> -----Original Message-----
> From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net [mailto:peace-discuss-
> bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Karen Medina
> Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2008 5:41 AM
> To: peace-discuss
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Will I.P. elect McCain?
> 
> 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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