On "loting" (was: RE: [Marxism] Downloading: communism is the future)

["Jose G. Perez" <jgperez@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>So from that I conclude that you think downloading music, or looting
stores, IS communism, or in some way LEADS to communism. And I say THAT
is a crock.<<

Well, I think we better separate out the two parts of this, downloading
and "looting." I'll deal with the "looting" first and specifically in
the context in which I raised it: ghetto rebellions.

I think "looting" is a perfectly natural and understandable reaction by
oppressed nationalities under circumstances like those that prevail in
the United States. Price-gouging white and corporate merchants have it
coming to them. 

For example, I live in a racially mixed development roughly on the
border between white and Black parts of town, and shop at two different
Kroger stores. One, with a mostly white clientele, to the north, the
other, mostly Black and immigrant, to the South. The merchandise at the
mostly white Kroger --milk for example-- is quite fresh. You almost
never see milk there with expiration dates less than a week away, and
usually it is 10-12 days away. At the other, mostly Black Kroger, to get
to the fresher milk you have to unload the bottles in the front and
reach in the back, where you'll (usually) find milk with perhaps a week
left to go. Also, the "white" Kroger always has the full line of milk
products. The "Black" Kroger often is missing some, especially chocolate
milk (which my kids) drink, and 1% milk.

The same is true of many other dairy products, eggs, etc. It is a
surprising thing because the stores are perhaps two miles away from each
other, and because from what I can tell, the Black Kroger is busier than
the white one and you would expect the higher turnover to lead to
fresher stock, if anything.

I believe that what is going on is that Kroger is taking the older milk
and similar from the one kind of store to the other. 

And like that, I think you can come up with thousands of examples, small
and big, of how retailers gouge especially the Black and Latino
communities, apart from just being capitalists in general.

"Looting" and similar phenomenon associated with ghetto rebellions is
simply an expression of the rage of the victims of this system against
the most immediate perpetrators and symbols of their oppression. It is
not, of course, in and of itself going to lead to "communism." Nor is a
strike or an antiwar protest nor a resistance ambush against the
occupation troops in Afghanistan or Iraq. 

But you certainly aren't going to get to communism by preaching sermons
against these, or against "looting."

I'll take up downloading in a separate post.

José


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