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4696 [lbo-talk] Michaels, Against Diversity -- rank: 1000

On Oct 4, 2009, at 5:58 PM, Voyou wrote: > I don't think it is unfair - Michaels's position on racism and sexism > really is superficial. Would you say the same about Adolph Reed, who supports WBM strongly? Doug

Document Size:	4779
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 4 15:32:26 PDT 2009

4697 [lbo-talk] Michaels, Against Diversity -- rank: 1000

On Oct 4, 2009, at 5:16 PM, shag carpet bomb wrote: > wow. he comes off as a real asshole. No kidding. But I think that assholery is related to the core of his whole schtick, which is moralizing and pious and very self- aggrandizing. He's done all the difficult work - though there's so much more to be done, of course! - to make himself better than all the rest of us dumbass white people. As Adolph often points out, there's no political program you can really derive from that sort of thing ...

Document Size:	5175
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 4 14:29:58 PDT 2009

4698 [lbo-talk] Michaels, Against Diversity -- rank: 1000

On Oct 4, 2009, at 5:09 PM, wrobert at uci.edu wrote: > I thought Reed's comments on this question were quite interesting(on > the show, it was one of the more provocative things that I have heard > in a while), but in a certain sense, despite the fact that Tim's > response isn't the most coherent thing that I have read, and is > missing the target a bit in his critique of you, certainly doesn't > fit the mold of the multi-culturalist who dismisses the need to > critique cap ...

Document Size:	7588
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 4 14:23:33 PDT 2009

4699 [lbo-talk] Michaels, Against Diversity -- rank: 1000

On Oct 4, 2009, at 4:28 PM, wrobert at uci.edu wrote: > My frustration with these types of comments is that the category that > is being identified is so vague and amorphous. Well, Michaels as been criticized - surprisingly, to me - as some sort of class-first troglodyte by Louis Proyect and Richard Seymour, who are quite sophisticated people. And then there are the self-righteous Tim Wise types. E.g the eruption below from Wise, part of an email exchange stimulated by Adolph Reed's la ...

Document Size:	10565
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 4 13:47:05 PDT 2009

4700 [lbo-talk] Michaels, Against Diversity -- rank: 1000

On Oct 4, 2009, at 3:29 PM, Joseph Catron wrote: > I, for one, am enthusiastically and > vocally in favor of a draft. And while I suspect this is a minority > position on the left, I know of enough others who share it to be sure > that it's not entirely heretical. I'm with you, esp now that I'm well over draft age! The ruling class understands that it's much easier to wage aggressive imperial wars with a professional army. With a draft, popular resistance is likely to be much stif ...

Document Size:	5207
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 4 12:40:38 PDT 2009

4701 [lbo-talk] Michaels, Against Diversity -- rank: 1000

On Oct 4, 2009, at 12:09 PM, brad bauerly wrote: > The recent debates > over health care and Obama being a case in point about the attempts > by some > liberals and fellow traveler's of the Democrats to use race as a > means of > distraction from the class based influences and decisions being made. See also, Charles Brown, on this list.

Document Size:	4962
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 4 10:46:07 PDT 2009

4702 [lbo-talk] Michaels, Against Diversity -- rank: 1000

On Oct 4, 2009, at 10:36 AM, shag carpet bomb wrote: > I didn't think the book was horrible. I just thought it was a weird > book directed at leftists who have been making the same criticisms > for years now. Who was the audience? He kept writing as if there was > some wide swath of leftists who don't get this. From the reaction to his stuff, there are a lot of leftists who don't get this.

Document Size:	4996
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 4 10:45:26 PDT 2009

4703 [lbo-talk] Michaels, Against Diversity -- rank: 1000

On Oct 4, 2009, at 8:51 AM, Jim Farmelant wrote: > Well the traditional Marxist take on racism , sexism and > discrimination, was that these things were beneficial > to capital because they divide the working class > against itself, weakening it politically, and undermining > its bargaining power in relation to capital. I think that's historically true, e.g. David Roediger's work (though a lot of the hostility arose within the working class, as a byproduct of labor market compet ...

Document Size:	5305
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 4 07:07:35 PDT 2009

4704 [lbo-talk] Michaels, Against Diversity -- rank: 1000

Here's a nice example for the diversity problem, drawn from this morning's NYT: <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/us/04housing.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all > Race and class make for a complicated mix in this region. Proposed low- or mixed-income developments have met with staunch opposition all over the New Orleans area, in both predominately white suburbs and in primarily black neighborhoods in the city limits. A development of 35 single-family, lease-to-own homes in the blac ...

Document Size:	6013
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 4 05:47:37 PDT 2009

4705 [lbo-talk] Michaels, Against Diversity -- rank: 1000

On Oct 3, 2009, at 7:19 PM, Chuck Grimes wrote: > It comes down to the idea that social movements for ending racism, > sexism, and homophobia have essentially benefited the neoliberal > economic system by asserting we all have a right to be equally > exploited. Man, this is further proof that Frank Luntz was really onto something with his aphorism: "It's not what you say, it's what they hear." Michaels doesn't say this. He's explicitly says that progress against racism, s ...

Document Size:	6554
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 4 05:21:47 PDT 2009

4706 [lbo-talk] Gaddafi the liberator -- rank: 1000

On Oct 3, 2009, at 2:56 PM, Eric Beck wrote: > But really, it's not about declaring something admirable or > detestable I guess I don't really understand your model of political change or mobilization, or what even the goal would be, aside from something pleasantly evocative but vague like the self-organization of the working class toward its own transcendence. I'm looking for guidance, comrade.

Document Size:	4912
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 3 14:50:45 PDT 2009

4707 [lbo-talk] more noxious crap -- rank: 1000

On Oct 2, 2009, at 9:55 PM, SA wrote: > This is astute. For the left, liberals are the Other, but the same > dynamic doesn't hold on the right. And this relationship needs to > change. That's basically what I was trying to get at here: http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20090914/012915.html > > But for that relationship to change, a lot of other things have to > change. It seems to me the model for the right relationship is > obvious - the popular fro ...

Document Size:	6669
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 3 10:51:49 PDT 2009

4708 [lbo-talk] more noxious crap -- rank: 1000

On Oct 2, 2009, at 9:39 PM, Michael Pollak wrote: > On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, Doug Henwood wrote: > >>> And that's the this: the opposite of conservative is liberal. And >>> if the Nation asked the question Is Obama A Real Liberal? they'd >>> not only have to answer it emphatically Yes, so would you and Doug. >> >> Liberalism is a mushy philosophy. It's watered down social >> democracy, which is itself watered down socialism, with a dose of >> ...

Document Size:	5881
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Oct 2 19:17:09 PDT 2009

4709 [lbo-talk] fresh punditry -- rank: 1000

On Oct 2, 2009, at 9:32 PM, ken hanly wrote: > I think maybe Glenn Beck scooped you a bit on Chicago Olympic > connections and Obama: > > http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,558222,00.html > > > She(Valerie Jarrett) gave up membership in the world's most > exclusive club(The U.S. Senate) to be in this administration. > > So let's ask this reasonable question: Why would she do that? Well > maybe some more information will help answer that. But we do know > tha ...

Document Size:	6618
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Oct 2 18:45:11 PDT 2009

4710 [lbo-talk] Gaddafi the liberator -- rank: 1000

On Oct 2, 2009, at 9:09 PM, Bhaskar Sunkara wrote: > Doug asks: > > " Has there ever been a left regime anywhere that you find > admirable, even > in part?" > > Carroll I bolded the part of the question that "stunned" me (though > I do > apologize for the hyperbole). And Doug, there are many triumphs of > European > Social Democracy that I can appreciate, even of the welfare state > elsewhere, > the October Revolution, even a few of the ...

Document Size:	5735
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Oct 2 18:17:09 PDT 2009