If you have opinions about the subject matter of posts on this blog please share them. Do you have a story about how the system affects you at work school or home, or just in general? This is a place to share it.
Thought I'd share this video from Catherine Liu. I think the talk is in response to the view gaining some traction in China that there is a "kill line" in the US, as the introduction to the talk states: "The idea of a U.S. “kill line” is going viral in China, fall below it, and the system lets you die. Is that actually how America works? Catherine Liu examines how a wealthy country produces mass poverty, turns everyday life into profit for capital, and fragments society through identity politics while class struggle is pushed aside."
Ms. Liu argues that a small number of powerful corporations dominate major sectors of life in the United States — from agriculture and food production to health care and the mass media. This concentration of ownership shapes not only the material conditions of society but also how Americans understand our own country and its role in the world.
The same individuals often sit on the boards of these corporations, reinforcing a unified worldview that serves the interests of the ruling class.
Through these media institutions, we are encouraged to believe that success is purely a matter of individual effort — the familiar myth that anyone can “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” When this narrative clashes with lived reality, people are pushed toward the conclusion that poverty or hardship is a personal failure rather than the result of structural forces. This internalized blame contributes to social crises such as domestic violence, addiction, and other forms of self‑destructive behavior, turning people against themselves or others who are struggling, “It’s their own fault”.
Ms. Liu also criticizes the liberal left, particularly the Democratic Party, for its fixation on identity politics. By dividing people into competing groups seeking a slightly fairer share of an unequal system, this approach fragments the working class and undermines the possibility of building a unified movement capable of resisting corporate power. Recognizing the specific forms of oppression faced by different groups is essential, but genuine liberation requires solidarity on a class basis. As Malcolm X observed, “You can’t have capitalism without racism.” Ending racism, sexism, and all forms of oppression ultimately depends on global working‑class unity.
I have not heard of this woman before but I really enjoyed this video and agreed with much of her analysis and her criticism of the elite liberals and identity politics. She’s spot on regarding the Democratic Party. She also raises the need for a working class political organization as well. It will be interesting to hear what others think.
In relation US her description of the hatred of the liberal class by working people on the one hand definitely has some basis in the support for the right. As she says, US workers know we're exploited, but if that's the case, the open naked exporter is less repulsive than the do gooders whose motives are rooted in the view that they are deserving of their higher social status as they worked hard for it and are smart. Consequently their compassion and caring for the poor and those below them is based on the view their role is to help those of us that are lacking not due to a system that is inherently unfair but due to their failings.
When she talks of care workers that are among the lowest paid of the workforce she stresses the need to organise and to recognise that they have a set of skills rather than just being a carer in the abstract. I recall a few years ago when hotel/motel maids were forming unions or attempting to form a union due to the extreme exploitation of the work but also the constant threats of sexual harassment or violence as they find themselves in the living quarters and bedrooms of many males.
Folks might remember the African hotel worker that was raped by a
Dominique Strauss-Kahn who was the head of the IMF some years ago. The hell she had to go through. I have spoken with housekeeping staff many times and they shared similar stories with me. They liked that I told them I didn’t need the sheets changed and stuff like that so they could get a break and they thanked me but reminded me not to tell the front desk otherwise they would simply give them more work to do.
There is no doubt that Identity politics has been undermined somewhat over the past few years and it’s a step in the right direction. I do not have the writing skills to articulate my objects but they go as far back as intersectionality when I was called a class reductionist by some liberal for my objecting to its origins and application. I have to say, myself and many others are relieved that the pronoun fad has subsided.
A great discussion
here with Briahna Joy Gray and Norman Finlkelstein about his new book, I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It!
Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom.
I have just purchased it.I am not familiar with Ms. Gray until now but
she was Bernie Sanders campaign manager, I am very familiar with Norman Finkelstein
and his work.
They both take up
the so-called “Squad” in the
Democratic Party with regards to “Force the
Vote” and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and the Squad’s response to the removal
of Ilan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee with AOC turning it in to an
issue of identity claiming she was removed as part of the war against women of
color. While many of those supporting that decision are likely both misogynists
and racists, the reason she was removed was because of her politics.
There is also a long
discussion about the rise of Sanders and his capitulation that is taken up in
the book. Finkelstein talks about how
Sanders could have built a “mass movement
on a class platform” but at that moment the weapon of identity politics was
brought in to “fragment it” to “destroy it”.
Finkelstein points
out that had Sanders pursued this path the capitalist owned mass media would
have gone on the offensive against him. MSNBC, Fox News, “they understand their class interests” he says and “…they don’t worry about their pronouns,
they worry about their bank accounts” Nice to hear some sensible stuff
coming from a left position as the left is so often absent when responding to
the nonsensical, reactionary approach of identity politics.
I have news for the
pronoun addicts, the vast majority of the working class is not worried about
pronouns either, this is a very 1st world and, I hate to say it,
petit bourgeois issue.
I agree with
Finkelstein on the mass movement that arose around police violence and he gives
the example of the protests around George Floyd, that there was real solidarity
in this movement, ethnic solidarity and solidarity among youth of all
backgrounds. “it was very moving to me” says
Finkelstein and he is right. It was of considerable concern to the US ruling
class and the divisive issue of identity politics is yet another strategy they
use to undermine and weaken working class unity.
The issue of the
rail strike came up as well as the leadership of DSA and what causes the
betrayals of people like Sanders. Ms Gray mentions moral failure, in other
words character flaw, structural problems and so on. And they both correctly recognize
the pressure that comes down on leaders or potential leaders of mass movements,
they get bought off etc. This is always a danger, but it is being rooted in the
mass movement, rooted in the working class and not just organizing and leading the
class but learning form the working class.
Marx’s profound statement
that the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class
itself is brought up in the context of the role university educated or
academics can play in our movement. Universities in my view are capitalist think
tanks, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn very important things about
society and life through the university experience. The main issue for those
academics who want to be part of the workers movement is that they listen not
just teach, that they learn from the working class as well and that they place
the knowledge they have through their education at the service of the working
class. Examples of this from academia are not common, but there are heroic figures
today and historically that have played this role at great sacrifice to
themselves.
Anyway, just a few
comments here, but do take the time to watch the video and get the book.
I think this is a a pretty accurate description of identity politics today and its growth in the post World War 2 era; the era of the "American Dream" The global domination of US imperialism with its bourgeois culture strengthened the view among US workers in particular that they were middle class and that's exactly how most workers identified themselves when I came to the US in 1973. I was told I was middle class. I had no aspirations to be middle class and considered it a bit insulting, like, maybe I wasn't doing something right. Do I sound pretentious? Arrogant? What am I doing wrong?
But it's no accident that US workers in the post war era identified themselves in this way. It preceded sexual, gender, racial or religious identity made easier by the material conditions that were the basis for it. It was the result of the class war. When the class question is undermined by both material conditions and the propaganda from the mass media, the pulpit, the universities and education system, then it becomes that much easier to introduce the reactionary identity politics.
The preponderance of identity politics, the pronouns, the obsession with sex and gender and all the other diversions is clearly a first world problem. It is being exported just like the poisonous fast food, art, culture film and language is. The bourgeoisie, as Marx pointed wrote in 1848, "....... creates a world after its
own image." The bourgeois, or capitalist class is strongest in the United States, we are in the belly of the beast here and the US working class is among its victims.
Identity politics itself is thoroughly reactionary and is a war against the working class and our
recognition that we are a class with our own interests, a class unto
ourselves; it is the one thing common to us all but that doesn't mean we do not recognize the special oppression that others of our class face and that we must combat them as they weaken class solidarity and our social power. It is in the interest of the working class as a whole to fight racism, women's oppression, religious bigotry and nationalism. The failure of the leaders of the workers' organizations and
workers political parties have also failed to combat this war against class consciousness while adopting identity politics as a safe alternative.
But in the last analysis, consciousness is rooted in material conditions, is a product of being, and the pendulum will and is swinging back in the other direction. I think this video is worth sharing.
Here’s a classic example of how the class question in suppressed
in US society and the reactionary role of identity politics in doing so.
We have elections coming up on June 7th and the
local paper in my small town has an item on four candidates for county supervisor.
The first candidate I glance at I am told will be “The legislatures first ever Black lesbian and Jewish member.” To
her credit, she does say her program goes far beyond her personal identity. She
is also a nurse and believes this gives her a “better perspective than most on how to bring about affordable health
care”.
She says a lot of nice things but not really much about how
to win them. And here’s an important aspect of this particular candidate. She
is also vice president for organizing for the Service Employees International
Union Local 1021 (SEIU) that represents a lot of health care workers. Local 1021 has 60,000 members in this area and
SEIU nationally has 2 million members.
With a couple of other unions the Bay Area economy could be
brought to a halt. But there is no
mention of this potential power. Aside from stating her position in SEIU, she
never mentions unions or workers.
Another candidate also “promotes herself as the first out lesbian to hold elected office in Oakland
as well as spotlights her Jewish heritage.”
Like the previous candidate she supports a lot of the issues
important to workers, health care housing the environment etc.
Then there’s another woman who I am told was the first
African American City council member in my town and boasts of her business
connections as the Co-founder of the San Leandro African American Business
Council
Another candidate, an Asian American, pretty much stands for
the same things, combatting homelessness, prison recidivism, for better
education health services etc.
The other candidate wants to put the southern part of our
county first, wants to lower sales taxes and instead raise taxes on the wealthy
in San Francisco and Silicon valley. He wants to create jobs by encouraging more
businesses “open up or stay here”.
There are other candidates that talk of “bringing us all
together” and nonsense like this as if a candidate, and a candidate in one of
the planets most powerful capitalist parties at that, can represent both labor
and capital at the same time.
But to return to the employee of one of the countries
largest unions. It is impossible in this climate to fight for the rank and file
union member never mind the working class as a whole as a hired hand of the
labor hierarchy. Without being rooted in the ranks and controlled by the ranks,
open your mouth and violate the leaderships policies and your gone.
Reading about the four candidates, I don’t think the word
worker was mentioned once and how the power of organized labor here in the San
Francisco Bay Area coupled with and linked to our communities and the unorganized,
has the potential to change the balance of class forces and is the only force
that can bring about the changes that these candidates say they want and are
fighting for.
There is nothing wrong with someone being proud of the fact
that they are the first of their particular ethnicity, group, sexual
orientation, color, religion or any other marginalized sector of the working
class to succeed at something or pass through doors once closed to them. But
more important is what they stand for and how they propose to produce the
goods.
As candidates in one of the two capitalist parties or the
other, and my area is overwhelmingly Democratic and the Democrats control the
state legislature, it would not bode well for them to talk about labor’s power,
the working class and how it is the working class through our position in the
production of society’s needs that can bring about real change; the very change
they claim they want.
Is it any wonder that millions of US workers not only don't vote but have abandoned the electoral process entirely. The trade union hierarchy bear the responsibility for this situation as do people that work for them and carry out their pro-market concessionary policies.
Things have reached such a stage in the airbrushing of the
term working class or class in general from the national dialogue that the leadership
of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) decided to cancel a meeting Reed
was scheduled to speak on his views, held by some other black academics that we
have reached a stage where there is a domination of the discussion about race and
either not enough about class or the omission of it entirely.
I do not intend to defend all of Reed’s views here, I am not
familiar enough with his long history of work in this field, but I am very
skeptical of black American critics in academia who claim that he avoids race
or as Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor says, “Adolph
Reed and his ilk believe that if we talk about race too much we will alienate
too many, and that will keep us from building a movement,”
This is similar to accusations directed at more right
leaning critics holding views somewhat similar to Reeds, like John McWhorter or
Coleman Hughes, that the motive for their views is that they don’t want to
alienate whites or that, as Hughes has been accused of lately that he, “Wants to make whites feel better”. It’s
standard faire from the “progressives”
it’s cowardly and dishonest, basically the educated professional’s way of
calling them Uncle Toms. A black worker would be much more direct. It also in
not unlike the accusation of being a self-hating Jew or even being anti-Semitic
that some Jewish critics of Israel are accused of.
I have written a lot about identity politics on this blog and
also made a couple of videos about it on my You Tube channel (nothing
fancy I’m video challenged but please don’t be critical it will hurt my
feelings).
So we have to rid ourselves of capitalism and we, the working
class, cannot do that divided along race, religion, sex or national lines. We
must have class unity and racism is an obstacle to that. But the progressives
(the liberal petit bourgeois to be honest) fear working class unity because for
them whether white or any other color, it’s game over. This is why they are so
hostile to it.
I have shared this personal history before but I am white with
an English accent. I have worked in the streets of some of the more
economically depraved communities and lived a black community (East Oakland) for
almost 20 years. If we were sent o repair a damaged water main in an economically
depressed are with maybe 40% unemployment among youth, I would walk toward the
liquor store (they are prevalent in poor communities as the reader knows) and outside
would be this group of young black males. Many of them were declassed in some
ways, permanently unemployed, some dropped out of school and some sucked in to
the world of drugs.
I walked up there for a purpose. Here were a crew of white
guys with decent jobs and in general folks who didn’t live in Oakland and certainly
not their neighborhood, and we were there to fix a water leak. I would address them
and begin to explain what we were there for. Immediately I could see their
expressions shift from an unfriendly somewhat suspicious glares as they tried
to figure out where I was from? My whiteness it seems, played second fiddle to
how I spoke.
A couple might ask me where I was from but when one of them
asked if I was from England and I replied in the affirmative, I could see how
proud the person was that they got it right. All of them treated me totally
differently than if I had not opened my mouth. The natural inquisitiveness
human beings possess came out. A white American co-worker would have had a
harder time and without years of union activity alongside different people from
different ethnic backgrounds, immigrant and women, and little or no delving in
to labor history or racial struggles in the US, the barrier would have been
hard to break through; one gets angry the other gets defensive. I am confident though,
that with the right attitude (not liberal white guilt, black workers can pick
on that right away it’s so condescending) and a sense of class solidarity, it’s
not hard to overcome.
I am as white as my white co-workers but clearly not white
American in their eyes. I am no social scientist but I got a break because I
was not white American and therefore did not have the same historical role attached
to me. These experiences confirm to me
that color is not the main issue, it is the historical role played by white
America in its acceptance of the “poison
bait” of white skin privilege and the absence of a leadership in the trade
unions and the working class as a whole that can offer a united struggle
against racism as part of the struggle of all workers against the capitalist offensive.
The present narrative about how racism is taught in school
or how we deal with it in general is dominated by the middle class and in
particular the middle-class (petit bourgeois) academics. Because of this racism
and the history of the rise of the US as a colonial settler state will never be
taught in a way that does anything but undermines and weakens working class
unity.
Philip Foner wrote ten volumes on the history of the US labor
movement Volume 4 is about the IWW and I remember it being a very exciting read
and the IWW had a very different approach to racism to the AFL. Of course, there
are many more sources out there.
My thoughts on race and identity politics as a means of obscuring the class question.
I point out in the video that all we hear about these days is the need
to "talk about race". It is important we talk about race as race (or
color) prejudice is the dominant divide and rule strategy of the US
ruling class. But the present narrative on this subject is dominated by
the petit-bourgeois and liberal academia.
The ruling class has to address it as its most prominent victims will
not stay silent. So we have these middle class layers,
multi-millionaires some of them, running around apologizing and trying
to pacify the movement this way. The end result for this section of
society will always be to blame the white worker in order to receive
absolution, make an apology feigning junior partner status and maintain
the status quo.
The present narrative is not intended to bring workers together, it is
lip service to the tremendous social upheaval we have seen in the US and
around the world in response to police violence, especially with regard
to the USA and the murder of black people here.
These are some of my thoughts and if you have questions send them to me
at: we_know_whats_up@yahoo.com
If you would like to hear my thoughts
(and other workers like me) on other issues like these send me an e mail
and ask. It will help me to think about them and and learn from it and
hopefully help you. It's a way of helping me understand what we're up
against Thanks for listening and check out the blog at:
weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com
If you wonder why the more astute crafty sector of the US ruling class loves wokeness
and identity politics here it is. This woman has all the right boxes checked.
She's got it all. And it hasn't prevented her from advancing through the ranks
of one of the world's most efficient killing machines.
The first US Americans in Vietnam were CIA agents and there they got to apply
all the tactics that they were trained for. They placed bombs, they dealt
drugs, they spread propaganda and lies in order to facilitate a shift change,
to replace the tired and outdated French colonialism with the new boy in town.
US imperialism, productive forces intact having it's major cities and factories
escaping massive bombing raids was ready to roll. It tried everything but the
nuclear option to defeat the Vietnamese and their desire, after French colonial
occupation to determine their own destiny. The effort failed after three
million Vietnamese died along with some 67,000 young US workers, wasted lives
all for profits.
In Africa the CIA's record is as bad. perhaps the most well known victim of CIA
ruthlessness was Patrice Lumumba. But throughout that continent, the CIA has
left a trail of blood.
In the Americas, the CIA has tortured, murdered and assassinated anyone that
resisted US imperialism's intervention. Domestically, its partner, the FBI has
also spent its time arresting, harassing civil rights activists and trade unionists, and in
the case of the Black Panthers, Fred Hampton for example, collaborated with the
police of a major city in his assassination.
As my friend and comrade, Jason, pointed out, this is where identity
politics will lead if it is left unchecked or unchallenged... That is not to
say that a mass movement will not have to reconcile a platform with diverse and
marginalized groups within it, but the way it is used to qualify and justify an
individual without considering their class dynamics is a mistake. Don't
take my word for it... the CIA thinks it's great!
Once upon a time, the left fought for the universal right to freedom of speech.
Today, many self-proclaimed progressives cheer on the censorship of
their political opponents. But it’s not just right-wingers who suffer
from cancel culture. The left itself is often the primary victim. Dan Kovalik is a labour lawyer, peace activist and author of Cancel This Book: The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture. spiked caught up with him to find out more.
spiked: What inspired you to write the book?
Dan Kovalik: I’m a longtime peace activist and
anti-imperialist. I was moved to write the book after the cancellation
of another peace activist, a friend of mine called Molly Rush. She
helped form a peace and justice group in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania called
the Thomas Merton Center 50 years ago and has been a very prominent
activist ever since. In May last year, a little after the George Floyd
protests started, she reposted a meme on Facebook. It was a picture of
Martin Luther King and some text explaining that MLK never rioted or
looted, but nonetheless changed the world. Immediately, she was attacked
on social media. People said she had shared a racist post. She was
moved to apologise given these attacks, but this was not enough.
Eventually, the Thomas Merton Center said it couldn’t work with her any
longer.
The centre cancelled out all the good things this woman had done,
including as an activist who lobbied for African Americans to be
included in the construction industry. This was the last straw for me.
This was not a productive thing to be doing.
spiked: What other examples of censorship of the left caught your attention?
Kovalik: A good example I mention in my book is
Adolph Reed, a Marxist academic and long-time civil-rights activist. He
has essentially been cancelled because he says that although race is
important, class explains many things that people often try to explain
through race. The Democratic Socialists of America, which is probably
the biggest leftist group in America, cancelled a discussion he was
going to lead at the end of 2019 due to an article he wrote, in which he
said that class cannot be overlooked when discussing racial divisions.
He was accused of being a class reductionist, which is just absurd.
Today, if you even talk about class, you’re seen as racist and out of
the loop. So he doesn’t get much of a hearing anymore. I rarely see him
in publications or interviews. He’s been shunned, because he didn’t give
in to the prevailing narrative on these issues.
spiked: Why is it so important for the left in particular to fight cancel culture?
Kovalik: Free speech has always been important to
the left. The left is the side that tends to be targeted for censorship.
Studies show that even Facebook and Twitter tend to censor left-wingers
more than right-wingers.
One of the most censored types of speech, at least in the US and UK
(in fact, it probably fatally undermined the candidacy of Jeremy
Corbyn), is advocating for the rights of Palestinians. There’s an
aggressive movement in the US to get professors fired and people
deplatormed for being pro-Palestinian. Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Prize
winner from South Africa, had a speech cancelled in the US because he is
pro-Palestinian. It was inevitable that the left’s embrace of
censorship would come back to bite us.
Even within the left, we need to accept that we don’t know
everything. We need to be able to talk about the important issues of the
day without being fearful that a perceived misstatement is going to get
us cancelled. The Molly Rush example shows this. She was advocating for
peaceful protests. Peaceful protests tend to be more effective at
winning over people than violent protests. We need to be able to have
that discussion on the left. But it is being shut down and that is
counterproductive.
People seem to think cancelling other people is somehow a form of
activism. Real activism and social change have now been eschewed in
favour of piling on people to get them fired or deplatformed. That’s the
problem – you have a movement that cares more about that than about
actually winning real gains for working people.
spiked: How does cancel culture impact on workers’ rights?
Kovalik: It destroys solidarity. The idea that I, as
a worker, would unite with the administration to get another worker
fired is incredible. But that’s what’s happening. Look at when people
try to get professors fired. Most professors now are adjuncts, they
don’t have tenure, they get paid peanuts and have no benefits. Getting
one of those people fired really is an example of kicking downwards.
This is not progressive in any way.
The logical extreme of this approach came to fruition in one case
under Donald Trump. As I mention in the book, in 2019 the National Labor
Relations Board overturned years of labour law which had given very
broad free-speech protection to workers in the context of collective
action. Before this decision, workers were allowed to talk in a heated
way to employers, other employees and strike replacements, to use foul
and even offensive language, so long as they did not threaten actual
violence. But in a new case regarding General Motors, the board
overturned that law, seizing upon the moment in which progressives were
calling for people to be fired for offensive speech. The ruling lays the
ground for employers to fire or discipline workers for speech they deem
to be offensive. The board even upheld the disciplining of an
African-American employee who, when trying to make his point that the
company was asking for too great of a concession, essentially pretended
to be a slave and said ‘yes, Master’. This censorious mood has been
taken up by the right and turned against workers.
Society’s cancellers are privileged for the most part. They can sit
in their fuzzy slippers in bed and go on their computer and engage in
activism by piling on people. It’s a very comfortable way to feel good
about themselves. But they are not speaking for those who are suffering
through homelessness and hunger. People who have those problems don’t
have access to computers and WiFi. And it’s therefore unsurprising that
the cancellers don’t care about class issues. They see themselves as
above that.
spiked: Are the Democrats part of this problem?
Kovalik: The Democrats are now taking up the mantle
of suppressing speech in the name of social justice. Much of their base
supports that. It’s happening at the same time as they have abandoned
the working class. We are going to see the ability to protest and speak
freely start to collapse – and a lot of ‘progressives’ will be clapping.
