[PEN-L] On Windows of Opportunity
--- Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A social movement, especially one with an ambition to present an alternative to capitalist modernity, needs a world view, a world view that inspires people to have faith in the work they must do in the face of adversity. I'm skeptical as to whether a better worldview is sufficient as a catalyst for mobilization. I think you were closer to reality that once you have a fully functioning commodity-producing society, with almost all social relationships subjugated to the value form and wage relationship, mobilizing people in a way that isn't system-immanent is nearly impossible. The classical workers movment was a movement by the proletariat *for* it's full, democratic integration into the sytem of wage-labor and parliamentary democracy. The American civil rights movement was a movement by black folk excluded from all that for the same thing. And the recent latino mobilizations, I would think, are in many ways the same. Which is not to say that such mobilizations shouldn't be supported. As I stated on lbo-talk, full support for open borders is the *minimal* demand for any communist today. This to me is a non-negotiable position. Anyone arguing for some sort of social-democratic welfare state measures to cushion the blow of neo-liberalism for workers in the advanced countries, but not supporting open borders, is defending racial privilege and welfare chauvinism of the advanced countries. Maybe every such movement for full democratic and civil rights has a *potentially* revolutionary dynamic, but with a time limit set, a closing window of opportunity. Latino workers fighting for access to the United States job market, and full bourgeois-democratic rights within the American political system, have a *potentially* revolutionary dynamic by throwing down the gauntlet to the privilege of native American workers. But the window of opportunity shrinks. And if the balance of forces changes sufficiently so that Latino immigrants are able to achieve their demands eithout effecting a revolutionary dynamic, then we are back to square one. Once people have mortages and Nintendo Wii, that window of opportunity closes. A quick glimpse at the technology discussion forums at www.digg.com gives a nice picture of the state of mind of workers in the advanced countries. When Macintosh is so lame you stupid faggot loser is the level of discourse of the educated skilled-worker elite, I don't see how any worldview, no matter how good, has any mobilization potential. Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. http://new.mail.yahoo.com
Re: [PEN-L] On Windows of Opportunity
Angelus Novus wrote: A quick glimpse at the technology discussion forums at www.digg.com gives a nice picture of the state of mind of workers in the advanced countries. When Macintosh is so lame you stupid faggot loser is the level of discourse of the educated skilled-worker elite, I don't see how any worldview, no matter how good, has any mobilization potential. . A few years ago, as reported by the SF Chronicle, I believe, a group of Netscape engineers were perusing some code in Internet Explorer (probably looking for the 'hook' into Windows OS), and not only discovered a backdoor in the IE's security, but also found some uinique 'padding code'... a section of code in software that doesn't really do anything, it's just required because the 'module' (can't recall the correct term) *needs* to be a certain number of bytes long. The padding code was text, and it said: Netscape engineers are weenies The developer that inserted that code, if my memory of general industry wages at the time serves, was probably earning somewhere from $50,000 - $70,000 a year to phuck around in his cubie. A MicroSoft developer could be more highly remunerated for their services... and for the most part, all of the above are specifically educated, over-the-age-of-majority... children. That's why unions had practically no luck organizing the silicon pit over the hill. Children are self-focused and easily distracted by shiny objects(coins and dollars), toys(every developer aspires to a blackberry, segway, Lotus, etc ad n.), and approval (titles like... 'technological evangilist come to mind). Leigh
