Re: [Marxism] Re:What happens to a race deferred?

["rrubinelli" <rrubinelli@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sort of contradictory elements in FF's post-- yes, exploitation of black
labor is the axis around which the history of US capitalism turns;
confronting the racism, the terms of the exploitation of that labor, is
absolutely the key, the condition, pre-condition, etc. for confronting
capitalism as a whole;  but if confronting exploitation is the key, and
the key to socialism, then socialism must resolve the problem at its
economic root, and economics as we know is nothing but the organization
of labor and property.

Minor point?  Maybe, maybe not.  Major enough for Fred to argue  that
"socialism cannot solve this problem."  I don't get that.  Unless Fred
means that racism is an ideology that even detached from the material
conditions of its origin,  has a life, and a life that must be attacked.
In which case there is no disagreement. Except that the contingent
conclusion that must be drawn  is that socialism is the pre-condition
for removing the source for the "recombination" of Jim Crow and Milton
Friedman.

What has happend in New Orleans, before NEW ORLEANS, is the product of a
historical continuity-- the negligence, attack, abandonment of the
social content of the big cities-- a process that  goes way way back,
accelerates in 1969, really accelerates in 1973, and comes on with a
vengeance with the election of Reagan and the lost decade of the 1980s.
And now reappears as one more need to destroy the "overproduced" fixed
"capital,"  of urban centers. Baghdad, anyone?

We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Louisiana is a petroleum state,
a "petro-republic," where everything and every one of the "indigenous"
people is superfluous to the extraction and processing of petroleum
products.

In this regard we can say that the bourgeoisie do have a plan, a vision
for the future, and that vision is Nigeria; that vision is "Plan
Colombia"  with military bases ringing existing and promising petroleum
centers, with the environment destroyed, and the indigenous populations
an obstacle to concession, enclave, capital.

We have seen the future all right-- in JBurg, Sucumbios, Putumayo,
Tarija, and New Orleans.

rr


----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "mxmail" <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, September 04, 2005 10:58 AM
Subject: [Marxism] Re:What happens to a race deferred?


> The racial divide which is a class divide in this country -- discussed
> in this Times commentary -- likely to get deeper as the evacuation
> process proceeds.
>
> The racial divide in general, and the Black-white divide in
particular,
> are fundamental forms of the class division in this country.  The
> oppression of Black people is at the center of the history of
exploited
> labor almost from the beginning.  Socialism will not and cannot solve
> this problem.  The battle for the resolution of this on a gigantic
scale
> is a precondition for socialism.  And this central form of class
> conflict in the United States has been thrown into extremely high
relief
> in New Orleans.  There is no socialist future without this fight, no
> matter how irrational capitalism gets.


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