I have to admit some ignorance at trimming extraneous text. I've done that with forwards, but not with replies. Anyway, I wanted to make a point to Mike, and more indirectly to Sonje:
The word "white" has been interjected before "working class", and this is potentially significant. Those of us who observe political culture notice that the working class in the minds of many, if not most, is associated with white men. I know Mike would protest that he is well aware of the reality, but it's he who interjected "white". We have seen critiques of this phenomenon that say that the reality of the working class is that it is mostly non-white/non-male. Somehow the interests of those who are female or "of color" (I bristle a little at that term) are identified politically as that, rather than on the basis of their class position. We also see that groups like the dreaded Socialist Equality Party make polemical points on this. Let's be honest: It's not like they are simply bloviating. Not on that point, at least. I think that Mike has a point about younger workers being more receptive to socialism, but I also think that the ideas of white male workers particularly are not so cast in stone. As I said, they don't frame opinions that way. They are not so anti-communist as just not focused on that. Times have changed, and so have the dog-whistles. My working experience was in conservative situations, I was not shy about my radicalism, and I had no blowback from fellow workers. Union piecards, to be sure; but they aren't solidly in the working class. Hopefully we are aware of how class consciousness advances by leaps in situations of class struggle. For those without this experience, industrial workers become very open to radical ideas on picket lines. If you scratch below the rhetorical surface, you can find a latent class consciousness in most workers when they talk about the relations between them and "the boss". To place workers, or anyone, in some political box due to what they might say when subjected to questions from a poll taker is misleading. Consciousness is more fluid and more complicated than that. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#709): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/709 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/76355485/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES<br />#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.<br />#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.<br />#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
