Re: [Marxism] the liberal uproar over Warren

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis wrote:
One of the things that is so bogus about hooking up with Warren is 
that there are lots of other evangelicals who don't carry his 
baggage. For example, Joel Osteen has plenty of clout but he doesn't 
go around looking for fights with gays or women. 


And ended with a flourish:
Obama hooked up with Warren for the same reason that he is putting 
rightwing Democrats and Republicans in his cabinet. He intends to 
make war with the American working class and their brothers and 
sisters in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Fred comments:
In fact, the selection of Osteen or some other Evangelical with no history
on the right would not have served Obama's purpose, which was not to
publicly "declare war" on gays and abortion rights and so on (regardless of
his intentions about either) but to reach out toward a section of what is
known as the Christian Right which  has been shifting from this stance
toward liberalism and the Democratic Party on some issues.

If Obama intended the selection of Warren as a declaration of war against
gays, for example, he has responded oddly to the brouhaha (declaring himself
a "fierce" supporter of gay rights and stressing his complete disagreement
with Warren on gay rights -- an exaggeration, of course, because he opposes
gay marriage although he might disagree with Warren's clearly homophobic
line of argument on the issue.

Louis states: "He intends to 
make war with the American working class and their brothers and 
sisters in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

Unless Louis is operating with an extremist conception that Obama is an
ultrarightist or fascist, it is hard to see this as anything more than a job
description for the position as imperialist president and commander in chief
for which he applied.  

Obama's choices, as Joaquin very perceptively pointed out in a number of
articles, is aimed at overcoming the divisions within the ruling class in a
time of troubles.

But Louis seem to believe that Obama seeks support from "rightists" like
Clinton and Gates and Richardson and Volcker and so on because he is a
rightist himself and because REAL liberals are incapable of performing such
functions. And indeed that seems to be the core argument that underlies the
war on the list against the "Obamaphiliacs" and "Obamatrons" by the
practitioners of what I think of as "Obamafoamia." 

No REAL liberal would wage war in Iraq or Afghanistan. No REAL liberal would
undermine abortion rights.

Well, such assumptions -- conscious or not, they clearly exist -- are false
to the core, reflecting perhaps inadequate study of the administrations of
Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter. All were quite capable of "waging
war" against workers and the oppressed of the world, and did so. This did
not prove they were not REAL liberals. These horrors were the work of
liberal capitalist politicians.

With proportions guarded (he does not aim at military government, direct
totalitarian rule, fascism, ultrarightist rule, etc.) Obama can be expected
to wage war against the oppressed and exploited as all his predecessors have
done.

The real lesson from the current clash over Warren is more basic for working
people. When gays come under attack in this country, they tend to come out
stronger. This has been true from the cop attack at Stonewall, through the
rightist crusades around AIDS down to the present controversy. That is
because they fight. 

I hope the message of this gets through deeply to the abortion rights
movement, and there are signs that it may be taking root in sections of the
labor movement. Blacks and Latinos and immigrant workers can't afford to
forget it either. Opponents of war face this challenge, especially now that
UFPJ has essentially declared itself defunct as an antiwar group. The latter
need not turn out to be a bad thing, in my opinion.

The fate of the Obama administration will be substantially determined by
whether or not this lesson takes hold. This is the main lesson the gay
rights movement brings to the rest of the oppressed and exploited in the
United States. I hope it sinks in.
Fred Feldman




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