[A-List] Romantizing working classes

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

WL:

1). How do you define class and class in American society and how does this

compare to the Lenin definition of class you asked me about?

^^^^^^^^
CB: I define class in American society by the Lenin def, pretty much . The
basic definition of a working class is wagelaborer.
^^^^

2). Why do you advocate building new plants in America so that American
workers can have jobs rather than a demand for income?

^^^^
CB:
I support decent jobs or decent income for all. I don't advocate jobs for
U.S. workers rather than advocate income for all. I advocate both. For me to
support more jobs, doesn't mean I don't support income for all who do not
have jobs.

 Almost all modern use-values or social necessaries are produced through
people working in jobs. The technological form of organization of production
of many important use-values is in plants.

^^^^^



3). Could you outline your political view of the over 200 rebellions or
uprising to have taken place in America between 1963 Birmingham and the
Battlecreek, Michigan rebellion against police violence, in you home state?

^^^^^
CB:  I haven't witnessed or heard about all 200. From the ones I have
information on, they are spontaneous, unplanned, disorganized expressions of
anger at police brutality, usually racist police brutality. They also
reflect anger and frustration with more general social problems which are
concentrated in poor areas of cities, and often Black, poor areas. In the
context of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960's, these rebellions were
viewed as somewhat "legitimate" protests against racism and poverty; so,
they were street heat that begot some social reforms. With the general shift
to the right in the U.S. since around 1980, there is less general sympathy
for anti-racist and anti-poverty protest in general, and so the rebellions
don't beget reforms as much.

The Michigan one was in Benton Harbor , I believe. Detroit's Devil's Nights
could be seen as a sort of institutionalized civil disturbance.

^^^^^^

Perhaps this will stimulate some discussion and thinking for those outside
America about how a couple of American Marxist (you are the American
Marxist)  and communist (I am a self described communist) view the same
events in real  time, taking place in America.

Melvin

^^^^^
CB; I don't describe myself as an American Marxist. I am a proletarian
internationalist.