Re: [Marxism] Counterpunch: The new rhetoric of racism

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Under another heading, Letter to a Marxmail Subscriber
(http://www.marxmail.org/msg48856.html, Charles Brown wrote:

In the current Reaganite period, it is the majority of white US
voters who have shifted to supporting Reaganite racism. The DP can't win
until a new White anti-racist majority becomes conscious.

"The Reaganite period" Charles Brown refers to seems to me to be ending,
although it has not been replaced by mass struggles for radical change as
yet, and may or may not be anytime soon. The rulers still hold the whiphand,
and this shapes the reactionary tone of the campaign on all sides".

It is important to stress here that it is not necessary for Obama (or even
any other Democratic candidate to get a majority of white voters in order to
win. I consider it certain that Obama's percentage of the white vote will
not bust qualitatively out of the high 30s percentagewise, which is where it
has stood for a long time. I think this is good enough if the rest of his
supporters are allowed to vote.

When I talk about my views on white working class and youth as potential
agents for change, I am not talking about a minority. My stress is not on
the possibility of uniting whites for radical change, but on the political
necessity of splitting them deeply, a process I beleve is beginning to take
place. And I actually think Obama's campaign is more resistant to the
ultra-reactionary attacks and distortions than Hilary Clinton would have
been.  PARTLY BECAUSE HE IS BLACK AND BECAUSE WHITES WHO ARE SERIOUS ABOUT
CHANGE (MANY HAVE STAKES IN THE STATUS QUO) RECOGNIZE THAT A BLACK PRESIDENT
IS CHANGE FOR SURE.

I stress "if the rest of his supporters are allowed to vote" because I
expect this to be a big problem unless the Republicans fold up in  the pinch
which is not their recent record. I foresee campaigns and mobilizations
around the danger of "felons" and "illegals" voting. I see rejection of
voters because their name is similar to somebody else's. 

Charles' assumption that the "Reaganites" have been a clear majority of the
country in recent years is not true. The 2000 election was stolen through
the Florida vote count after months of polling had convinced the Democrats
that they were going to lose. But when the votes were counted Gore led the
popular vote and it all came down to Florida in the electoral college. Gore
had gotten so demoralized that he conceded when the outcome was clearly in
doubt, and President Clinton had to slap him awake to start fighting.  (And
my once favorite left newspaper, The Militant, proclaimed all this a
Democratic conspiracy "to steal the election from Bush."

In 2004 the claim the election was stolen by the Republicans is not quite
proven in my view, but there is no doubt that considerable dirty work took
place in Ohio.

Rather than getting used to the idea as Obama's defeat by the invincible
racist right wing as inevitable, as they did in the case of Gore, I kind of
hope that the Democratic party is prepared to carry the "50-state strategy"
out at the polling booths and afterward in a concerted way. They should be
geared to block vote obstruction targeting Blacks and Latinos, and to fight
for every vote afterwards as well.

Yes, I do care how this scummy, reactionary bourgeois election turns out.
Fred Feldman








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