Re: Reply to Carl Remick

[Carl Remick <carlremick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> Yesterday, Carl Remick (whose pen-l messages somehow get swept up in my
> spam filter) ...

You have your filter set for too high a signal-to-noise ratio.

> ... wrote the following:
>
> "I agree with your view about What's the Matter With Kansas?, AN, and I
> hope LP will reply at some point. I would welcome hearing a Marxist
> explanation for the great mystery that Frank identifies -- that Kansans
> (and US'ers in general) seem to be driven by phony-baloney social issues
> to the virtual exclusion of being concerned about economic reality.  How
> *can* sheer fantasy trump material fact that way?"
>
> Frankly, I don't see why Thomas Frank's book is such a big deal. The
> "matter with Kansas" has also been the matter throughout the deep south
> since Reconstruction. White workers have often resisted trade
> unionization because of racism. They have also been gung-ho for just
> about every imperialist war. And these are the lowest paid workers in
> the country.
>
> Instead of reading Thomas Frank in order to understand why the Democrats
> don't win elections (a rather trivial issue for me at least), one would
> be better off trying to understand the deeper roots of class
> backwardness in the USA. ...

But one of Frank's points is that USers were less backward about class a
century and more ago.  Americans today seem exceptionally fogbound by
historical and global standards.  I think besides race, which you identify
as the key factor, the ubiquity of misinformation from the media is a main
contributor to mass cluelessness about class interests.

Carl