The U.S. idea of a white race developed and persists due to its contrast with a nonwhite race. How the nation's working people wrestle with that contradiction is, I think, a useful sign of a qualitative and quantitative change in the political balance of forces. Seth Sandronsky
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2008 13:25:31 -0800 From: Sandwichman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Re: Re: Re: the odd couple To: "Progressive Economics" <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 12:29 PM, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > okay, what are the underlying contradictions of this current phase of > capitalism and to how are the apparent mass movements responding to > them? are they trying to produce a more democratic & collective > system, or are they trying to re-establish some imaginary golden age? > or is it something else? For me, the principal underlying contradiction of the current phase of capitalism in the US is and has been the way that working-class consciousness has been subordinated to subjective notions of "whiteness." It seems to me that the symbolic importance of the Obama election outweighs, for the present, its inadequacy in terms of progressive policy. It is up to the left (if they're up to it) to make something of this opening, rather than to snooze through it with the usual armchair-vanguardist grumbles of disdain. -- Sandwichman
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