[Marxism] PATTI SMITH to Perform at Nader NYC Rallies, THIS MON (and a comment)

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here's a good piece of news for the Nader campaign.  I suspect she
hasn't changed her position, but is solidarizing with the embattled and
beleaguered, and taking a stand against the anti-Nader campaign of the
wing of the ruling class that is backing the liberal Kerry in this
election. Good for Nader who, with all his inadequacies, has earned this
by "staying the course", and, of course, good for Patti Smith

One point.  I don't know whether the left "abandoned the working class"
but there is no doubt that millions of workers loathe the Democratic
Party and Kerry -- which postured for years as their party but now
offers them exactly nothing, and, in fact, less than nothing. Andy
Pollack's contribution to the discussion re Mike Parker.   The sense of
betrayal runs very deep.The hostility between the liberals and the
working class, which has grown, is a factor and an unpredictable one in
this election, which looks pretty good otherwise for Kerry at the
moment.

Parker is basically responding to the pro-Bush sentiment or more
accurately anti-liberal responses of his coworkers, by shifting his
position toward the liberal wing of the ruling class and against his
coworkers.  There is a real element of "abandoning the working class"
here.

There are polls that show that 18 percent of Blacks who vote may vote
for Bush -- on religious and other grounds.

We should not forget that it is very tempting for workers in this
election to vote religion or patriotism or support the troops or which
candidate seems more"just folks" (this is a plus for Bush, who has been
a talented low-level demagogue on this) or some other "false
consciousness" point because THEIR BASIC MATERIAL AND SOCIAL INTERESTS
ARE NOT AT STAKE IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM, not even in the illusory form
that Democratic candidates used to represent. Either way, they are going
to get screwed. Their pensions are going to sink, their union protection
will decline, their wages will deteriorate, and so on.  They know this,
and it simply isn't a campaign issue.

I think more could have been done in the 60s and 70s -- in retrospect,
which means very little, I sort of think the SWP should have been in the
miners and auto back in 69-70 (for quite different reasons than the
ideological workerists in the party at the time suggested -- they were
on a totally different track, as I recall.)

But I think "abandoning the working class" is a big overstatement of
what happened in the SWP or elsewhere.  There was quite a lot of  real
and would-be "orienting to the working class" going on in fact.

But I am worried about a tendency to reject and abandon the
working-class NOW, under the pressure of a many decades-long decline,
and for the WORST IMAGINABLE REASON: They or many of them are not voting
for the liberal scumbag against the conservative scumbag in an election
that basically reflects initial tactical differences in the ruling class
and a very initial polarization in the general population which has very
little to do with the real, sharp, and violent polarizations that will
lie ahead in a period of increasing class struggle. And this can happen
even in the framework of opposition to the two parties, by the
assumption that the potentially progressive forces -- antiwar and so
forth -- are really all concentrated among those being fooled by the
Democrats as opposed to those being fooled by the Republicans.

That is why I have become so firmly opposed to the description of a vote
for the capitalist candidates as a "vote for war."  It is important to
get a fix on how imperialist democracy works and not accept in any way,
shape, or form the phony framework this system establishes for
determining where people are at and where they are headed.  For me,
that's what this debate and the debate over religious fundamentalism,
and prowar sentiment among workers, and all that has been about.

Fred

Attn. Nader Supporters,

Get this out far and wide, we're going to have lots of national press
there and we REALLY need a good crowd, no matter where you are in the
country please help push anyone you know in the NYC area to come out for
Ralph's campaign finale.

Jason

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