Re: [PEN-L] overwork for gamers

[Waistline2]

In a message dated 11/18/2004 8:13:09 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >It is ironic that some who want to liberate the workers don't even recognize who they are-- that they are all around them, in their neighbourhoods, their workplaces, their families, and that in most cases, as wage or salary earners themselves, they are also part of "them". But the narrow identification of the working class with manual workers is more than a "careless habit"; intellectuals  have generally romanticized manual labour, and some of those on the left have an idealized view of the working class drawn from the period when it was mostly industrial, highly-unionized and often militant, circa. 1880-1945. It is easier for them to imaginatively dwell in that period and to superimpose it on the present, than to confront the reality of a largely white collar and retail working class which is thinly unionized and politically passive, with a large part of the old industrial workforce in the depressed mine and mill towns having becoming lumpenized and socially reactionary.<     Comment   Very difficult subject with considerable disagreements. Politics like love is where you find it. You have to get into the field to find either.   Personally, my read and understanding of our history is that there has never been any significant section of the working class with class consciousness . . . period. The Pullman Strike over a hundred years ago was probably the most political and violent ascertain of workers on behalf of themselves in American history. This strike was lead by Gene Debs and the leaflets issued called on workers not sto simply defend their union but to take up arms and fight for political authority to run things on behalf of the working class.   The workers in most of the country had no connection as such to this political event. The period outlined above from 1880-1945 witnessed a sharp change in the form of unionism and the emergence of industrial unionism, which involved an economically and politically important sector of the working class, but not the working class as a whole. Far to often the communists, socialist and progressive left behaved and described the trade union movement as if it was the labor movement and then lacked a critical vision of the most poverty stricken sector of the working class or "the real proletatiat," that is at the bottom of our huge working class.     It seems to me that the fundamental block to trade union unity and unity of the working class as a whole has been the regional color and wage differentials, as opposed to how various sectarian groups understands our own history. I remember the wave of strikes by the sugar workers in the South, especially the unionized workers based in Louisiana, during the 1980s and into the 1990s. What generally happens is that the industrial unions in the North that are influenced by a section of the left, would generally send a check for $500 as an _expression_ of support.   I really believe that politics is the art of the possible and trying to do what is not possible is a waste of time as organizer of real people. I will take ten with a passion to continue the fight for economic justice and fairness after the election, even if they are hell bent on electing Kerry, rather than the ideologically pure and noble "man."   Ideology and a theoretical tumble in the hay is fine, and then one has to skin the cat as the saying goes. It has not and up until this very day is not possible to unite a very poor paid worker with a highly paid worker. A lot of things are involved and one is the development of the internal trading between regions of the country and wage differentials in various industries. High paid workers know they are high paid workers and simply are not going to go out on strike for say a group of sugarworkers in Mississippi. It is not going to happen because they cannot get better working conditions or a better wage rate and say, "the only thing I am going to get out of such action is fired."   And they are bascially correct. This means learning to do what is possible.   The tech workers are not better or worse than the higher and low paid industrial workers, and many software workers, not just the small "uppity ups" are hitting the wall. Untenured professors are hitting the wall and been hitting the wall. They are subject to the same laws of wages, with a sharp difference from the unionized industrial workers: we get paid for overtime and have union protection.   An autoworker pulling 60-80 hours during a new product launch - "crunch time" is paid time and a half for every hour over 8 in a day and over 40 in a week with double time on Sunday and triple time on holidays. At say $25/hour a 40hour week is $1000.00 plus the benefits.  Then 60 hours is $1750.00 and 80 hours - with say ten on Sunday is about $2500 or bascially what my pension check is after taxes and not including health benefits.   Since 1972 wages have been falling and a "new" class of poor is rapidly being visible in America cutting across the old regional and color divide. This opens the door for a new assertion in the direction of class politics.   In the past many of us have worked with active Democratic Party members on the local level.  An election is a wonderful arena to meet people . . . lots of working people and election day offers anyone a captive audience of millions.   As for the CPUSA and the SWP in history, their particular ideology or theories, in the last instance mattered little, in terms of the unity of the working class and the shift in the social struggle in the post WW2 era. A political slogan for unity cannot create unity. A political slogan is subjective and you cannot make an objective thing happen with a subjective demand, unless it is already happening and if this is the case there is really no reason to tell something that is happening "to happen." People can only be lead in the direction they are already going.   Swimming against the stream means you are going to either drown or be drawn away from the current of events. The stream is real water or objective and not a debate. Politics is the art of the possible.   Then there is the CPUSA. Browder and Lovestone, Foster and even Gus Hall - as leaders of a political group, faced the same regional color and wage differentials. Basically, I think the "sin" of the various Marxists groupings and parties in the past has been their inability to shift and stay an intimate part of the stream of events, while stating their ideas and goals in the way people think things out. Sectarians is by no means exclusive to the Marxists. The Catholic Church, Mormons and the rest of them are very large organizations but sectarian to the bone.   The CPUSA and SWP, as well as the wave of "M-L's" during the late 1970s and early 1980s are part of our collective history and made real contributions to the social struggle. Sectarianism limited all the various political currents.   The good part is that we have a chance today to "do it the right way" and prove in the flesh "superior insight and thinking." Whoever wins the fight to bring real working people together is going to impact the social movement with whatever their "brand ideology" happens to be.   My brand?   Miller light . . . I'm going with taste because the carbs are the same.   Waistline