[Marxism] Thomas Frank on the latest Obama flap

["Charles Brown" <charlesb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

gary.maclennan

There is something deeply sickening about the Clintons - corrupt
multi-millionaires posing as champions of the working class and
attacking
Obama for approaching the truth about the workers.

Now I thought this quote captures the central contradiction of the
Volcker
period, which of course we are still going thru:

<However, his comments on the Obama flap reflect what was the
underlying premise of his hit book: mainly, that people were voting
against their economic interests because conservatives had galvanized
them around political-identity issues.>

I would pose the question as to how conservatives ended up supporting
radicals.  But the question cannot be posed outside the class system
and for
me the Hegelian master-slave dialectic as interpreted by Roy Bhaskar in
his
magnum opus *Dialectic: The pulse of freedom*.

For Bhaskar the slave can be trapped into seeking ways to discover
mutual
forgiveness and reconciliation with the master rather than true
emancipation
through the dissolution of all  master-slave relationships. This urge
to
have the boss as a "mate" as the Australians would put it is very real
even
though it leaves the worker vulnerable to manipulation by ruling class
elements, and above all to be distracted into resentment and envy at
the
carefully chosen scapegoats.  Chosen that is by the powerful.

^^^^^
CB: Gary, I wonder if Hegel based his thinking on the empirical
examples of master-slave relationship in the US.  Both Denmark Vessey
and Nat Turner led revolts that failed because another slaves who were
"vulnerable to manipulation by the master", so to speak, betrayed the
plan to the master.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Turner%27s_slave_rebellion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark_Vesey
Two slaves opposed to Vesey's scheme leaked the plot

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