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Comrades, I watched the beginning of the Nascar event in Homestead, Fl. The announcers began with an explication as to why the action had been taken not only to divorce the association with the previously rife displays of the Confederate flag but to outright ban it on their cars on the tracks, in the stands on the fans, and at any associated NASCAR sponsored social events. The "Dukes of Hazard" and their 'General Lee' <https://www.foxnews.com/politics/new-home-for-the-dukes-of-hazzard-general-lee>, in the language of their minds, would be *verboten* At the beginning, the NASCAR' spokesmen said what would be expected: an admission that *"yes, the shit we put down was fcked up...but we better now"*. Least that's what I heard them say. Apologies had to come there and have come or will come anywhere and everywhere, wherever, they have been or are being forced to react to the momentum of the streets. Even some cops taking a knee. Politicians. Club owners in other sports. All talking about racism (and having to admit how wrong they are and have been, i.e. really only affirming what could not be denied) but little about the socio-political effects of not just racialist capitalism but the economic discordance of capitalism itself and the tragedies it spawns and births. It is, again, as if no one wants to tell that emperor that he has no clothes. All the mouthpieces speaking about racism, talking out the side of their necks. In spite of all the still not considered spite, I consider this change from NASCAR's image as a most positive cultural thing. Even significant. For when a movement is able to win victories in battles such as these that it has not yet even joined then that movement has momentum. That movement is winning. I believe that there will be reactions from a part of their fanbase. Peckerwoods spouting sht like "First Amendment" and sneaking 'Rebel' battle flags into the race or proudly driving up with stars and bars on their pck-ups and their cars. But actions such as these are but skirmishes, meanwhile the battle still rages even thouh the war has yet to even be declared. Thus at every opportunity we need to show this and that inequity's relationship to capitalism. As effect from cause. As cause from effect. Each, with the other, in a vicious, non-virtuous, self-reifying spiraling-'society'-downward circle further and further and... But apart and away from this arena or that stadium and that stage, attention needs to be paid to the construction and discussion of a plan, of a vision of society and how it is that that would work. Occupy became occupy when no society-challenging demands were being promulgated, discussed and taken to, and for, the ones who really matter, the overwhelming numbers of us in our neighborhoods. That is the main battleground. The battlefield, that in the end, dictates the outcome of the war. And if mere marching and mere moving and not real movement building remains the remains of the day then this movement will be unable to go where it needs to and ought be, could be and should be. This does not mean that there are not already substantial gains in the actions that began with the George Floyd murder and amplified by the BLM movement and our multi-racial allies and comrades. As the '50's and '60's there were changes, real changes, victories that were won, triumphs that were achieved (e.g. Brown v Bd of Ed of Topeka, KS, affirmative action, college and university black and other's studies depts. The legal right to vote in areas where local law and cop and vigilante terrorism had proscribed it.) And here, today, there will be unerasable changes effected. But as the civil rights marchers crossing bridges in the '50s, and, the '60's civil disturbances on Northern streets and colleges--with black militancy in our hearts, our bodies, our visions our hair, in our fist and in our *arms*, while leading to lasting changes, they did not bring The Change that was seen, evoked and propagated and preached by the visionaries among us who were only giving voice to the mass consciousness that was our soul. After what was lost in injuries and deaths, and imprisonments and disillusionments, the progress that was won, these changes that were made, at best, only drew us even with the damage to the lives, the heartbreaks, the sacrifices, the efforts that these gains cost. But as for the NASCAR's move, where I grew up in Mobile, AL there is a museum. One of the exhibits is a scale replica of the CSS Alabama <https://www.stephensandkenau.com/ship/css-alabama-model-ship/> and, for a warboat as a blockade runner, it is a most handsome vessel. Naturally, there is flown the 'Stars and Bars' in the permanent midst of an ocean's flutter. What do we ask about that? Nothing, to my way of thinking. It is where it ought to be...in a museum. It happened and it is history that must be recorded, that ought be preserved. Along with statues and plaques and all monuments to man's inhumanity to man needn't be destroyed only warehoused where they belong, in museums. As far as schools, parks and street names, they are beyond my present pay grade to comment upon. But all the gains won't end up being worth any more than a 'kiss-my-foot' if we don't stop the arsonist-in-chief from continuing to light additional fires of social and political and economic inequities. Without capitalism being stopped, junked and placed in a museum, it will continue to do so. And life as illness will remain...with changes but not Change. JAI _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
