Re: AUT: RE: antiwar movement

["FoofighterPilot" <cwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

What are different people seeing in their daily lives?

My workplace, for example, is Baltimore Gas and Electric in (big shock)
Baltimore.  The amount of pro-war stuff displayed in cubicles and in the
truck garages is overwhelming.  But so is the amount of right-wing country
music and Christian influence (Christian music, Christian talk radio,
Christian sayings and Bible quotes, etc.)  Baltimore Gas and Electric is
relatively privileged in Baltimore, however, with a long history of
anti-unionism and relatively little workplace struggle.  Of course, a
variety of anti-work stuff (or Dilbert comics, which is funny but really
awful and cynical too) is in many people's cubicles, but it seems to me
radically overshadowed by the pro-war/patriotic/Christian Right stuff.

I admit, compared to Chicago, Baltimore is very conservative in many ways
(far more Christian Right elements, for example.)  And given that BG&E is
very white compared to Baltimore and most of the whites live in the counties
and are afraid to come into the city except for work, that also may skew my
view.  But so far, outside of a few, mostly Black, workers, the sentiment is
not terribly pro-revolution.  In fact, I have spoken to people who think
that Clinton was a communist.  I find it hard to convey the degree to which
my daily experience of this country confirms a deeply reactionary sentiment,
one entrenched in a deep weakness and despair, in which patriotism and
religion are serving a belly full of fear.

And that is what is funny.  More than anything, there is a tremendous amount
of fear.  Not in the sense of people going "Oh, the world scares me", but it
seems like the only way I can grasp the deep attachment to a terrible
irrationalism in which all facts which threaten the status quo appear as
violent threats to be treated with anger and violent outbursts.

As such, demonstrations of a few thousand people (in Baltimore, a few dozens
to a few hundreds) feel like they do not at all touch where I work, which by
itself is some 8,000 people.

I do not mean to be depressing, but this is my workplace.  At the moment I
still have few relations outside of work.  I can say that many (15-20)
teachers I know oppose the war, but on little or no clear basis.  Most of it
is anti-Bush.

What are other people experiencing?  What are people talking about?  What
kind of stuff is up in their workspaces?  This I think is more important to
discuss than Dave's well-intended but frankly abstract comments.  I would
love if they gave concreteness to Dave's comments, but I don't see it.

As for Iraq, support who?  I start with opposing this government, this
society where I live.  But I cannot defend the Islamists or Ba'athists.  Not
only is it wrong politically, but it shuts off any means I might have to
have some dialogue with people around me.  It is hard enough, but that would
end it.  I think that the efforts of Thiago and others to have contact with
people in Iraq is excellent.

A couple of us here might be able to do some of that, but it seems, given
the weakness of things in Baltimore, to be a secondary consideration.  More
important is to consider how to bolster the anti-war elements, to open up
dialogue and increase the space for anti-war ideas.  I fear, however, that
in the abscence of mass opposition (an opposition that will require some
unpredictable combination of domestic problems and quagmire in Iraq)

I am not sure why it does not make more sense to support groups like the
WCPI, even if their actual impact is not at large, but that is not a
necessity.  There is not always a 'new revolutionary subjectvity' in
formation. That kind of mess is what leads to supporting the KLA and other
wanks.  Instead, we could point out, as Thiago mentions, that reactionary
opposition has increased in the face of what the US has helped create since
WWII.  It is not hiding to explain capitalism and the need of the wealthy
nations to make use of reactionary forces.  Better to have small
educationals, to get out the history of the region, to present boring but
solid facts.  Not with the hope that we overcome the mass media, but with
the hope that we fertilize the ground for future resistance.

Anyway, nothing grand.

Cheers,
Chris



     --- from list aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---