Laurie Dougherty wrote: >I'm not trying to be mean here. But this thread is really pushing my buttons >and I'm tired of feeling told to shut up because I don't have all my >coefficients in perfect order. No one told you to shut up because of disordered coefficients. In fact, no one has told you to shut up at all. Though I will say that this working class authenticity act is wearing a bit thin. Most of the people on this list are politicized intellectuals of one sort or another. We're supposed to look at the world in some sort of historical and theoretical context. Believe it or not, I think it matters a lot just how new "globalization" is, and what it consists of exactly. I'd be happy to hang out at your recommended bar and talk with people. In fact, I do quite a bit of that already, and not just at bars, but at union halls, church basements, and on the radio. I even have some working class subscribers who write me and call me. They're not anything like your description of the "real" working class quoted below. And just what are we to conclude from this? >You want to do a culture gig, Doug? Forget trashing Stanley every chance you >get. Where is the challenge? Go on down to the Red Fox Bar at the bowling >alley on the corner of Poplar Level Road and Old Shep across from Appliance >Park. You can talk Wall Street with Charles who keeps up with that stuff, or >politics with Mike who is very smart, funny, a great big teddy bear of a guy >who collects assault weapons as a hobby, reads paramilitary literature and >used >to be a small town cop. Discuss the perils of postmodernism with my friend >Becky (almost the only one besides me who did not buy the company\union >Support the Gulf War T-shirt.) Buy her a drink. She collects glasses in the >shape of a naked guy - a specialty of the house at the Red Fox. For yourself, >you could get a naked lady. Carol - who believes that men are like tires, >every >woman should have a spare - will flirt with you until you start running by her >that globalization ain't nothing new. She gets fairly rabid on the >subjects of >immigration and folks who don't buy American (US American, that is). Really, I mean what's your point? In sequence, it looks like this: political theory is irrelevant, and the U.S. working class is armed, sexually voracious, vulgar, and xenophobic. Might as well give up politics then and trade options, eh? Doug
