Trust me on the following: Obama is CEO for the capitalist class. WL.
^^^^^^ CB: So were Lincoln and FDR. From my observations, that's dogmatic ,formulaic thinking ,and in this situation, there keep arising more indications that something new is going on here. Need to try to think dialectically on this one. Again the first indicator is getting all those White people to vote for him. That's breaking a quantitative barrier. Then his first month as Pres is realistic , but making some changes that are possible in this context , despite all the left haters say. I could list the actions , but I'm not going to exert myself for the haters. Fuck em. The big crisis/problem is Afghanistan, and ,of course Palestine He's going to have to be Houdini on that. I can't see how he'll do it. Unless he just pretty soon , after this assessment he can get something like broker both a treaty with Hamas and a treaty with the Taliban et al not to facilitate, and to hinder any attack on the US by the bin Laden group. I don't know how he gets out of the obligation to capture bin Laden, *********** Reply To begin a presentation - (the six part series for Black History Month, and the follow up dialogue) with class, class struggles and class antagonism, and then point out that Obama is the CEO of the capitalist class may very well be "dogmatic ,formulaic thinking ," or a refusal to "try to think dialectically." But, there is no way to see how one thinks other than as it is expressed in exposition. For me this means class intersection and where the communist must push for the concessions made possible on the basis of temporary "fields" of relative unity. For instance health care has emerged as one of these fields and not because the workers "need health care." This field emerges as a manifestation of intersection because private industry large and small, is being crushed by health care cost, along with insurance companies indirectly paying for the cost or medical plans. Further, the cost of Medicare can be more rationalized and driven downward by its reorganization around our new technological regime and the cost of prescription drugs can also be driven down through regulation. Class intersection of interest, rather than Obama as the "uniter" must inform our view of the art of the possible. Another such "field" exist in the agricultural sector, as the expansion of welfare and food stamps. Most certainly this business sector is screaming through its lobbyists that "the people are hunger and need food; our food." Through this intersection of interest arising the demand to increase the consumption capacity of the masses, which also intersects with a huge area of the economy driven by consumer demand. Here is the basis upon which Obama emerges as "uniter." This is not a bad thing, but a "thing" that must lend itself to a Marxist unraveling in its class dimensions. This is not to suggest being opposed to excursions into anthropology. This clamoring about white people is unsettling because 58 million, primarily whites voted in the historically fascist political block anchored in the Southern political establishment. We really need to find the means to propagandize class and popularize its meaning for America. I am of the opinion that the great polarity to be stuck and fought for in American society is between fascists and non fascist. There are material reasons for this opinion bound up with this stage of decay of capital. In the pre and post WWII era it was possible for a section of world politics to be anti-fascism and anti-communism because capitalism itself had not reached its historical barriers and the anti-communist/anti-fascists axis still had a task of sweeping the last institutions of feudalism from earth. Further, the era of the national colonial revolutions had not been completed and allowed for a unique class intersection of forces that emerged as the politics of the "Third World" movement. It mattered little that we communists screamed at the top of our lungs that there is no such thing as a "Third Way," because the world still had to complete its historical process bound up with the destruction of direct colonialism and establishing the world hegemony of finance capital. Today, the world class alignment is such that the world bourgeoisie and world proletariat faces each other along lines spoken of in the Communist Manifesto. Further, a section of the world bourgeoisie and world proletariat has been effectively cast outside of bourgeois production and face each other in external collision. Without the connecting bond - tissue, that is the unity of productive forces and social relations of production there is no basis for unity with these extreme manifestation of the capital relations. If you do not have a job or the prospect of getting one, you exist in external collision with capital. Capital that is detached from production and existing in external collision with productive capital, demanding government redistribution of wealth rather than government aid in wealth production, signals the emergence of class antagonism. How can a political mass today be anti-fascist and opposed to socially necessary means of life being distributed to the starving proletarian masses? Stated another way, in the post WW II period one could be anti-fascist and anti-communists by fighting along the line of satisfying the incredible commodity hunger of the world created as a by product of the war. A hunger that could be effectively satisfied on the basis of the expansion of capitalist production. If you can feed a huge section of the world you are going to win the ideological and political struggle on the basis of lifting the masses from the ravages of war. This was the material environment for the consolidation of anti-fascist anti-communism as a political axis in the post WWII era. This condition no longer exists. Thus the political polarity to be fought for is between fascist and non-fascists. This penning away over "left haters," and "fuck em," seems to be a misuse of energy inasmuch as the opposition to realizing "the possible" on the basis of class intersection, comes from the fascists as expressed in the Republican Party social and political base. For instance 58 million people who voted for McCain, fundamentally but not exclusively white, expressing its own self contained class intersection pivoted to thinly masked white supremacy ideology and a platform of less government and anti-American liberalism seems to me to be the Congressional base of opposition to the Obama agenda rather than "left haters." I am not of the opinion that "let haters" are "messing things up for us" and the "brother from another planet." I do agree with the presenting of Lincoln and Roosevelt as an index; as individuals called forth by the changing boundaries in the capitalist system to reform it. In Lincoln case the reform of the system meant the transferring of political power from the agrarian aristocratic like capitalists to the industrial capitalist, with the unexpected rise of finance capital produced during the financing of the Civil War. In the process of this transfer of power the issue of the emancipation of slaves emerged. What is interesting is that for this transfer of power - (political authority), from one class sector to another to take place required Civil War. My thin reading of world history indicates that no where else on earth was Civil War required to transfer power from the agrarian capitalist to the industrial capitalist. Rather the Civil Wars in the rest of the world was bound up with the transfer of power from feudalists to capitalists. In relationship to Obama as the Second Coming of Christ, or rather Lincoln, he is called forth to reform the structural and institutional relations between exactly whom or what sections and sectors of classes? The comparison of Lincoln to Obama begs such questions and we must at least try to answer them as folks schooled in the theory of Marx. In my opinion Obama is not called forth to effect the transfer of political power from one sector of capital to another as was the case with Lincoln. There is no sector division within capital analogous to the agrarian bourgeoisie and the industrial bourgeoisie. There are sharp political divisions of a sectarian character within the ruling political caste. The Southern political establishment is not economically rooted in a distinct economic sector of the economy. Thus, Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, a boll weevil Democrat turned Republican, demands the auto workers in the North take cuts, or that industry move to his state. Differences between such traditionally Southern Democrats turned Republican does not express sector differences in capital, only sectarian political differences, or methods of rule and how the government redistributes wealth. I believe it is wrong, going to get us in trouble, create terrible ideological and political confusion to paint Obama as Social Democrat and the "others" - Republicans, as non-social democrats. Both parties are evolving along an axis of an American version of Social democracy, to the degree that both agree with government transfer of the workers created wealth into the economy, but in different directions. Reagan and Bush busted the "budget" and Clinton forever changed welfare, "as we know it," not the Republicans as such. One of the exception was John Engler as governor in Michigan, who attacked the states welfare program on the basis of eliminating "general assistance" for single unemployed males. On the other hand society is straining under the pressure of the growing antagonism that are the productive forces in hostile conflict with the social relations of capital. We have to explain this is all kinds of ways. What is Obama called forth to do? In the case of Roosevelt there was only the threats of a political/military coup. The world of Roosevelt will not be repeated because it can't. Roosevelt positioned American society to enter the war and establish its political and productive - economic, hegemony over the capitalist world and ensure a half century of expansion of the capitalist system. No matter how much Obama appears as the new Roosevelt he cannot expand the system, only institutionalized the growing polarity within our society. I am not opposed to fighting along a line of class intersection because there does not exist any other way to fight. The Roosevelt Coalition can only be recreated in form, not content and it is imperative that communists understand this or present the argument that in fact this is a repeat of history at the same level. History does repeats itself at the same level, the first time tragedy the second time comedy - farce. "Left haters." Even during the period of Lincoln the abolitionists movement remained the abolitionists movement, without being torn from its goals. This movement contained its left and right wing with the right wing condemning the left - "radical Republicans." Within "radical republicanism" was it most extreme left expression in the shape and existence of the black abolitionists such as the intellectual and theoretician David Walker. David Walker, author of "Walker's Appeal" was in his day understood as a "left hater." Analogies are fine but have their place on the spiraling staircase of history. WL. **************Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your neighborhood today. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filing&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000004) _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
