I'm Watermark
Diabetic
The aim of the Right is always to restrict the scope of class conflict — to bring it down to as low a level as possible. The smaller and more local the political unit, the easier it is to run it oligarchically. Frank Capra’s picture in A Wonderful Life of Bedford Falls under the domination of Mr. Potter illustrates the way small town politics usually works. The aim of conservative urban politics is to create small towns in the big city: the local patronage machines run by the Floyd Flakes and the Pedro Espadas.
The genuine Left, of course, seeks exactly the opposite. Not to democratize the machines from within but to defeat them by extending scope of conflict: breaking down local boundaries; nationalizing and even internationalizing class action and union representation. As political scientist E.E. Schattschneider wrote a generation ago: “The scope of labor conflict is close to the essence of the controversy.” What were the battles about industrial and craft unionism; industry wide bargaining sympathy strikes, he asked, but efforts to determine “Who can get into the fight and who is excluded?” - Bob Fitch
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It's time for a serious discussion about class conflict. Which is something largely, mistakenly ignored in contemporary politics - with all that "equality" and "classless society" jargon, you know? It's become so forced out of discussions - wither online, or in a social or academic setting - that we're almost denying the very core of what makes us American. That is, the class divisions that can be traced back through and beyond our founding.
So let's talk about it - go back to those virile, class hating roots of yours, and make this part of the discussion.
The genuine Left, of course, seeks exactly the opposite. Not to democratize the machines from within but to defeat them by extending scope of conflict: breaking down local boundaries; nationalizing and even internationalizing class action and union representation. As political scientist E.E. Schattschneider wrote a generation ago: “The scope of labor conflict is close to the essence of the controversy.” What were the battles about industrial and craft unionism; industry wide bargaining sympathy strikes, he asked, but efforts to determine “Who can get into the fight and who is excluded?” - Bob Fitch
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It's time for a serious discussion about class conflict. Which is something largely, mistakenly ignored in contemporary politics - with all that "equality" and "classless society" jargon, you know? It's become so forced out of discussions - wither online, or in a social or academic setting - that we're almost denying the very core of what makes us American. That is, the class divisions that can be traced back through and beyond our founding.
So let's talk about it - go back to those virile, class hating roots of yours, and make this part of the discussion.