AUT: Caffentzis article

["Nate Holdren" <nateholdren@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone-

Two quotes from and some questions on this Caffentzis article:

"the use of this term ['war on terrorism'] is not simply an expression of
some personal fear of actual terrorist attacks but is increasingly become a
code term for the new form of military Keynesianism which promises jobs and
a little job security to US citizen workers fearful of the international
competition. In other words, the war on terrorism is less and less about
images of the collapsing Twin Towers and more and more about billions of
dollars of government contracts and millions of jobs that are going along
with them."

"[US working people] are terrorified of being made jobless and homeless by
the power of capital to move beyond US borders and use foreign workers
against them. That is why the "helping hand" from capital that the Bush
Administration is offering white or citizen workers through the "war on
terrorism" is so attractive. It holds out the possiblity to them that they
can escape the international competition for jobs in a globalized labor
market through their status as "loyal" citizens which will make them
"irreplacable.""

Do folks onlist living in or with friends in the US think this accurate?
Almost all of my friends are young people and either leftists, bitter cynics
with decent jobs or fuck ups who can't hold a normal life together and have
trouble getting by (or some combination of these categories). As such, I
don't really see folks I know in the above quotes. Can others comment on
this? Particularly on the attraction of the war on terror? Caffentzis gets a
lot of mileage from a small handful of poll data and I'm not totally
convinced. Do white workers in the US really see flags waving and listen to
diatribes against the browner skin toned and think "hmm, this could mean a
decent job for me...". Fear is definitely ever-present in this country, but
I'm with Chris that in my experience it's less an externally directed fear
and more a fear of loss of wages and ensuing financial ruin. (The corollary
to this though is that with credit many US workers are living beyond their
means of income, which could mean some real ugliness if the bottom drops
out, whether left leaning or right leaning is another question.)

One other question - I'd like to know what the more ultraleft - actually
make that Left Communist (sorry Jens, I forget that 'ultraleft' is
perjorative to some) - folks on list make of this article, particularly the
stuff on unions and ... well, institutions I guess, for lack of a better
term. Caffentzis puts a lot of emphasis on unions and union busting and
talks about the immigrant freedom rides and so forth in rather unambivalent
terms. I was at some of the freedom ride activities and it seemed to me to
be not solely about immigrants rights but also about partitioning immigrant
populations into good and bad - the upstanding hardworking job hunting
immigrant who just wants a fair day's wages was the trumpeted figure. There
was a lot of calls to respect "immigrant workers" for the contribution that
their labor brings to the US economy. Not the most radical of perspectives
by any means.

Also (and yeah, something of a non sequitur but I just thought of it) some
of the major organizing unions in the AFL - UNITE (soon to be UNITE-HERE),
AFSCME, SEIU - are all very big into top down corporate directed organizing
campaigns involving public pressure and beating up on the popular opinion of
the company. That's great in that it can win wage and benefit gains for
large numbers of workers, but at the same time it doesn't create very member
animated organizations, it lends itself to highly top down unions (with
often very poor servicing, hence a fair number of decertification campaigns
run against each of these unions by members) the leadership of which are
less susceptible to internal pressure by the members.

just some thoughts.

best,
Nate

\
We will teach our twisted speech to the young believers.
-The Clash, "Working For The Clampdown"

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