Re: [Marxism] The shifting ruling class mainstream

["Dayne Goodwin" <daynegoodwin@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you Joaquin, for quoting my message from almost two weeks ago.
I wrote that simple message after reading the message you wrote almost
three weeks after the election in which it appeared that you were
saying that you thought the Obama campaign was a *continuation* of the
most powerful social movement by any sector of working and oppressed
people in this country in modern U.S. history.

I found it surprising that a serious marxist believed that this was
the case, so i asked directly - and you reaffirmed your opinion with a
"Yes."

It seems to me that if the Obama campaign was in fact a *movement* of
the workers and the oppressed it would be manifest in organizations on
the ground, at the grass-roots.  Where are the organizations of this
movement and what are the relationships of accountability between them
and Obama?

I don't think that the Obama campaign ever was a movement of the
workers and the oppressed. I don't think that the Obama campaign was
"qualitatively" more progressive than the campaigns of other
mainstream bourgeois politicians who became the presidential
candidates of the capitalist Democrat Party.

With your message on "the shifting ruling class mainstream" you now
acknowledge that Obama is a *mainstream* bourgeois politician but in
your new rationalization that's because the mainstream bourgeoisie has
come over to support (the qualitatively more progressive) Obama.

And apparently the "movement" of the workers and oppressed that was
integral to the Obama campaign vanished when the campaign ended on
election day?  Or do you now see President-elect Obama's
government-in-formation as a developing political alliance between the
workers and oppressed and the mainstream bourgeoisie?
Dayne



On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 7:19 PM, Joaquin Bustelo <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Dayne Goodwin: "i do notice that there's nothing more in Joaquin's latest
> epistle about the Obama campaign being a continuation of the 'most powerful
> social movement by any sector of working and oppressed people in this
> country' in modern U.S. history.  Can we cross that illusion off the list?"
>
> The reason there is nothing on there about that is, first, that the Obama
> campaign *ended* a month ago. Didn't you notice? He won.
>
> Second, that the subject I was addressing in the post was not Obama's
> campaign at all, but rather the (to me) very evident shift in the stance of
> "mainstream" bourgeois policy.
>
> But third, this trick of pulling quotations out of context and framing "when
> did you stop beating your wife" questions around them I'm sure served you
> well in high school debate club meetings, but is hardly suitable for a
> discussion among serious people.
>
> The ORIGINAL context of the phrase you quote is this. I was replying to a
> post that said sure, Obama was preferable to McCain just as Kerry and Gore
> to Bush, etc.
>
> And I said no, that's not right, the alignment of social forces around the
> various candidacies was very different:
>
> "There is, in U.S. society, a *qualitative* difference between an Obama, on
> the one hand, and a Gore, Kerry, Bush, McCain, Dobbs (either Farrell or Lou)
> or Timothy McVeigh on the other. It is a difference that has played a
> central role in the development of the U.S. social formation. It is a
> difference that led to one of the bloodiest and most significant civil wars
> in world history. It is a difference that led to the most powerful social
> movement by any sector of working and oppressed people in this country of
> the modern, post-WWII epoch.
>
> "Insofar as that difference is concerned, Obama's candidacy was a result of
> the conquests of that movement. But it was more --it was perceived and
> embraced by the overwhelming, crushing majority of the protagonists of that
> movement, the Black community, as an expression of and part of the
> movement."
>
> To which you countered with the simple minded counterposition:
>
> "Was the Obama presidential election campaign a *continuation* of the 'most
> powerful social movement by any sector of working and oppressed people in
> this country' in modern U.S. history? - as Joaquin argues.
>
> "Or was the Obama presidential election campaign a successful effort by one
> of the smartest, most talented, most ambitious and audacious individual
> bourgeois politicians in modern U.S. history.  Could it be that the Obama
> candidacy was particularly useful for the capitalist system at a time of
> severe and deepening crisis?"
>
> In responded that "I think the answers to Dayne's first AND second question
> are clearly YES," rejecting the contrived counterposition.
>
> You didn't choose to debate that then, but instead come back NOW, a couple
> of weeks later, and in response to a post about a distinctly different
> albeit related matter, you impute to me a shame-faced retreat from what I
> said.
>
> You are, of course, free to believe the earth is flat, Mary was a virgin,
> and God planted dinosaur bones in the ground as a test to separate those
> faithful to the literal truth of the Bible from the infidels.
>
> You are also free to believe that the movement of Blacks as a people was
> neither the most powerful social movement of modern U.S. history nor did it
> have anything to do with the Obama campaign.
>
> But it is simply silly, among serious people, to dismiss as an "illusion"
> that the PROTAGONISTS of the Black movement, Black people, viewed and
> embraced his campaign as an expression and part of that movement, and viewed
> his victory as not just the victory of an individual person, but as a
> victory of Black folks and their struggle for liberation.
>
> THOSE ARE FACTS, not illusions.
>
> You can argue, if you want, that the Black community is entirely wrong, that
> there is no sense in which this was a victory for Black rights and whatever
> other sectarian foibles you had in mind when you framed your post. But at
> least give reality its due. And also give the sophomoric debating tricks a
> miss.
>
> Joaquin

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