Re: Sample of how Americans' think/ Labor and Aristocracy

["bon moun" <sherrynstan@xxxxxxx>]

> That workers embrace nationalist ideology, and THINK they benefit from
> imperialism, is not controversial. The question is whether Marxists tell
> them it's true, thereby reinforcing the ideology.

They embrace *imperialist* ideology.  They think they benefit, because they
do, just as white workers think they benefit from the national oppression
of fellow US workers, because they do.  Marxists saying they don't, when
most Black and Brown workers know damn well they do, and arguing that
position from - what is for most US workers - an abstract position, and a
position whose core of truth lies hidden behind a reinforced wall of
anticommunism, is not only dishonest, it is a colossal waste of time when
you are putting this argument before the most backward sector of the white
US working class, and that is a substantial sector.  Shouting that they
ultimately are participating in their own exploitation, while true, is not
an argument you can make to this backward sector.  They just shout back.
Some of them will shoot you.  Anyone who thinks they can has never tried
it.  And Black workers by and large, even if they won't articulate why,
will let you know that "black and white unite" appeals to working class
solidarity in the US are often unrealistic and sometimes fraudulent. (No, I
didn't rule out multi-national solidarity!)

The ideology of racism is integral to this chauvinism, and any discussion
of "nationalist"(US chauvinist) or "capitalist" ideology in the US that
fails to take that on, and keep that fact at the very forefront is utterly
hopeless because it is completely detached from American reality.  I
reiterate, however, that racism is the *ideology*.  The actual *structure*
of that oppression is national-colonial in character.  Race is not some
side issue for the American psyche, including our very mixed working class
consciousness.  It is central. (Sex is central to that, but we won't go
there in this one.)

Some white leadership on the left is way behind the power curve on this,
owing to its continued reluctance to confront the manifestation of white
male privilege that convinces us we are just way fucking smarter than
anyone else, and we end up refusing to accept Black and-or female leaders.
This is not a personal attack on anyone, but a general observation... so
put the arrows back in the quivers.

If we are talking about ideology, come on down to Durham and see which
ideology prevails here in our Black communities that translates into a
politics of resistance.  It's nationalism.  Not US chauvinism.  Black
nationalism.  Does this suggest anything to us?

The organization of Black workers, for very good historical reasons, by
Black leadership, in conjunction with Black leadership among socialists who
are working in multi-national political formations, is an absolute
precondition to any sustainable revolutionary movement in the Southern
United States.  I strongly suspect the same holds true for Brown workers in
the Southwest.  I would also submit that this "Sunbelt" is strategically
critical to any nation-wide working class movement.

>From where I sit in North Carolina, the struggle for Black
self-determination and Black political power is the first - bar none -
political priority.  This may, for some time to come, involve the
willingness to split the white working class when necessary.  I know I'll
be burned as a heretic some places for saying that, but I stand by it.

The very real US labor aristocracy is part of this problem, and its members
will be confronted (sooner than most of us think, IMHO) with some very
essential decisions.

BTW, hereabouts, our Black unions represented on Saturday.  Think about it.
Those are the workers whose streets are patrolled by hostile cops, and
whose relatives do road maintenance all over the state in orange Department
of Corrections uniforms.  I've already heard the old saying revived...
"Ain't no Iraqi ever called me nigger."  Patriot Act II?  That's just an
extension of an existing program via its codification into white society.

Stan


~~~~~~~
PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.