John Gulick: >Here in S.F. where I live, young white men who _look_ like Michael Moore's >stereotyped depicitions of the working class (bowling shirts, tattoos, into >car repair, etc.) are rarely themselves from a working-class background, hold >working-class jobs, or have any sense of working-class identity. This is a very interesting thread. Part of the problem with the left is that it retains a vision of Marxism from the 1930s when many of these stereotypes had some basis in reality. One of the reasons that Moore is so much a fountainhead of this imagery is that he is so strongly shaped by Flint, Michigan, the quintessential 1930s city. Working class consciousness has been evolving as the mode of production has been evolving. For an excellent insight into changing values and attitudes--as well as a history of the TDU--, check Dan LaBotz's "Rank and File Rebellion". I can't say enough good things about it. In it we learn that Pete Camerata liked working with the Catholic Church in Detroit where he went to school and began college. The Church he attended eventually had a majority black congregation, but he stuck with it. He got a job on a loading dock when a fraternity brother told him about the opening. As a Catholic in a mostly black congregation, Camerata began thinking about the issues of poverty. By 1975, he considered himself a Christian socialist. The book is filled with portraits of people like this. One final word on Michael Moore. Just after he got canned from Mother Jones for refusing to print one of Paul Berman's awful pro-contra pieces, I got in touch with him in DC to debate Berman up in NY. He said sure, he'd be happy to. Meanwhile, I got talked into asking this "expert" professor from Middlebury named John Weeks who always appeared in NACLA. On the night of the debate, which occurred right after Chamorro's victory, Weeks got up and told the audience that the Sandinistas were no different from the ruling party in Mexico. I nearly fell out of my chair. So much for experts. It turned out that Weeks had gotten very sour on the FSLN and neglected to inform me of this when he accepted the invite. Louis Proyect
