How inevitable was this?

[Dhalgren]

This is really good. The follow-up question would be "how do we get folks to act like a class?"

Workers have to start thinking of themselves as workers, not Americans or Baptists or Democrats or whatever. That was what the unions always did so well: focus workers energies onto the struggle, the fight against the other class. It demonstrated in clear, unequivocal language the separation of the classes and the antagonisms that are inescapable. This is where the capitalist government and sold-out union leadership has done so much damage - damage that must be undone. I am not the one to come up with "how", I don't have the chops.

One thing that has to be recognized is that working to establish a consciously class oriented union is very dangerous. Curtb could teach a class on this (where is he?). It cannot be done in secret or through dissimulation and will be strongly opposed on all fronts. Besides working through unions and workers organizations I have no ideas.

[blindpig]

One thing that has to be recognized is that working to establish a consciously class oriented union is very dangerous. Curtb could teach a class on this (where is he?). It cannot be done in secret or through dissimulation and will be strongly opposed on all fronts. Besides working through unions and workers organizations I have no ideas.

And whadda ya do in 'right to work' states? It is so tough around here, listen to the local public radio, the business report is sponsered by a firm that describes itself as "labor lawyers", you can imagine which side of the table they sit on..... The governor is very clear that the state is the enemy of unions with no apology. Gotta look into what's happening down in Charlston with that Boeing plant, I read that the union was going to give it a shot but that's a very hard dollar. People are so ground down, $15/hr is 'good money' and they want all of the o/t they can get.

1937 got a lot to do with it.

[Dhalgren]

This is exactly what I'm saying. We got a row to hoe, but at least there ain't no argument on the direction we need to head - up is all we got.

[anaxarchos]

Voting for or against this Democrat or the Republican - one or the other - makes no difference. I cannot understand why we are even trying to analyze the vote.

Allow me to disagree with you, Comrade Curmudgeon. The fact that you or I may think that voting for Democrat or Republican doesn't make a difference actually makes no difference. Working people do vote for these two parties, in part because they DO think it does.

We have to analyze all of it... the whys and wherefores of their screwy institutions and silly systems that don't at all act as they claim. We need to dissect their talking points and explain their frauds, even though the entire institution may be rotten. Otherwise, we come to our own conclusions and we are done. Then we can talk about this or that dispute in the 1930s or 1940s...

I know that is not what you mean.

[Kid of the Black Hole]

Allow me to disagree with you, Comrade Curmudgeon. The fact that you or I may think that voting for Democrat or Republican doesn't make a difference actually makes no difference. Working people do vote for these two parties, in part because they DO think it does.

We have to analyze all of it... the whys and wherefores of their screwy institutions and silly systems that don't at all act as they claim. We need to dissect their talking points and explain their frauds, even though the entire institution may be rotten. Otherwise, we come to our own conclusions and we are done. Then we can talk about this or that dispute in the 1930s or 1940s...

I know that is not what you mean.

Getting ahead of the game seems to be part of the problem on this. Like Dhal said, anybody can write post mortems. Much more difficult to do as things are unfolding or as things advance.

[anaxarchos]

Getting ahead of the game seems to be part of the problem on this. Like Dhal said, anybody can write post mortems. Much more difficult to do as things are unfolding or as things advance.

Actually, they aren't so good at post mortems, either. These consist of an excuse which sounds plausible (even if it often isn't) and an exhortation to do the same thing again... only harder... for decades at a time.

Must not be trying hard enough.

Democrats and FDR are the prototype. If I think that Humphrey Bogart movies are the quintessential Hollywood and I haven't seen him in 60 years, do I keep paying the price of admission in the hope? That is quite beyond the question of whether my memory of Bogie is accurate or not.

[Allen17]

I think the point Dhalgren is on to is important: in this hyper-individualistic (in the worst sense of that word) society, it is incredibly difficult to unify the working class, and what's more, a lot of people have misconceptions about what "the working class" really is. Have we defined it yet? Once we define it, how do we organize it? What type of conditions will it take for the working class to become organized as a class, to reach critical mass as a class?

These are all important questions, I think.

[Dhalgren]

Allow me to disagree with you, Comrade Curmudgeon. The fact that you or I may think that voting for Democrat or Republican doesn't make a difference actually makes no difference. Working people do vote for these two parties, in part because they DO think it does.

We have to analyze all of it... the whys and wherefores of their screwy institutions and silly systems that don't at all act as they claim. We need to dissect their talking points and explain their frauds, even though the entire institution may be rotten. Otherwise, we come to our own conclusions and we are done. Then we can talk about this or that dispute in the 1930s or 1940s...

I know that is not what you mean.

I have read this over a couple of times since this weekend and have cogitated some (that's right, as in "codger"). I think what I was irked about most was all of the "progressive" gnashing of teeth and how it seemed we were giving that too much credence. I have reread a lot of the thread and I see now that maybe I was doing some gnashing of my own...
Now, especially in light of Nikos great thread, I am thinking more in terms of making some kind of difference. I have finished Chernyshevsky's What Is To Be Done? and want to spread some "otherness"

By the way, What Is To Be Done is simply a great book. Anyone who says, "It is a bad novel", has to finish that sentence...