[Marxism] re: Immigration in the...

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Godena wrote:

Immigrant workers, especially illegal immigrant workers, are,
sadly "a dog that just won't hunt."   They have no real ties to
the community and have no interest in going out on long and
expensive strikes over gains that will in all probability be
realized only over the long haul.   They are here to make a lot of
money and then move on.   I guarantee you they will scab on every
strike (I've seen it again and again), work double-breasted, and
support the union only if they see some IMMEDIATE gain.  Other
than that, forget it. ...


Fred comments:
I think it is time for Godena to leave this list or to be unsubbed.
While it has been interesting to have such an authentic voice of the
labor aristocracy -- and such impressive proof of its continued
exisGonce (a debated issue), his views are purely reactionary,
chauvinist, reinforcing and deepening the most dangerous and damaging
divisions in the working class  (not just the native-immigrant division,
and white and nonwhite, but the divisions between the very poor and
better off, employed and unemployed, union and nonunion, migrant and
settled, temporary and permanent, urban and rural, generational,  etc.,
etc., etc.).

Louis has been bending over backwards to keep Godena on the caravan, but
he doesn't belong on it.  Louis' attempt to contain the discussions that
result when Godena makes his contributions on the immigration question
have ended up focusing on trying to restrict the contributions of those
whose contributions belong on the list and fit within its framework.
Although there are other problems, we end up losing Calvin Broadbent to
keep Godena.

I have supported Louis' course up till now.  My experience in the
Marxist movement has sharply reinforced, and corrected retreats from, a
kind of libertarian bent that I had when I began to radicalize.  I don't
like telling people not to discuss, or ruling out ideas from the
discussion. And it is reasonable, when someone first brings a
reactionary idea onto the list, to have the discussion rather than
settle the matter with reference to the "norms"  But this experience is
showing me inlife that there is a limit.

Godena is committed to his reactionary idea.  It is central to his
political ideas and apparently to his entire approach to the labor
movement. While common to many native and even immigrant workers who are
settled in  as "Americans," it has no place in the revolutionary Marxist
movement.  From the standpoint of the US labor movement, for example, it
would be not a road forward but a literal death knell.  Fortunately the
unions, such as they are, have tended to stumble or drift forward on
these issues in response to the struggles of immigrant workers
(including those apparently very bad workers who seek "immediate gain"
from unions -- I sort of thought that was a basic element of the impulse
to form them).

We have had the debate thoroughly now, and it is clear that Godena will
not be won to and cannot really live with the predominance of the
Marxist view here.  Louis is the owner and there will be no votes, but I
think he should go.

Fred Feldman
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