From owner-marxism-international  Tue Apr 15 20:30:43 1997
From: christi-ann@juno.com
Subject: M-I: In response
Message-ID: <19970415.202909.4951.1.Christi-Ann@juno.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 20:27:58 EDT

For efficiency's sake (plus the fact that I am typing this one-handed), I
am going to reply to three posts that came to me in this single one.
Forgive me if I start to ramble; the percocet is just kicking in.

To Carrol, who posted this:

> Does the "you" in your post apply to *everyone* on the list? >Zeynep? 
Carrol (me)? Louis P? Louis G? James Farmenant? >Yoshie? Gay? Or do you
have in mind specifically the Buffalo >Group, one of whose messages
provides your subject line?

> The kind of response I would give depends on this clarification.

I mean the Buffalo group.  It was their last post that prompted me to
write.  Some of the stuff the others write is a bit difficult for me to
understand, but I attribute that mainly to my either joining the list in
mid-thread, my being unable to pin down where one's loyalties lie (I find
Bob Malecki's posts most illustrative of that, no offense to Bob), or my
own admitted lack of interest in a particular topic, since I find I can
understand a topic better when it interests me.

However, at least for the above three conditions, the people who write
posts I have trouble with are also fully capable of writing things which
I have no problems getting.  It's the Buffaloes that are consistently
frustrating to me.

To Jon Flanders, who posted this:

>Tell us about your experience in the working class. I agree that this
>list needs a little more of that kind of reporting

You asked for it :):

I'm 26, and I come from a blue-collar background (I was the first in my
family to attend college, even if I couldn't continue my education).
Since I didn't get enough education in my major to get even an
entry-level position in the field <pre-med>, I had to take clerical
positions.  My first full-time job was at the factory where my father
worked, typing work orders and filing papers.  It was a gun manufacturer,
and since the department I worked in handled fully assembled and
functional handguns, I had to work in a CAGE; I didn't get the luxury or
dignity of an office.

Well, the plant had been unionized for about 10 years when I got there,
and that was a big thorn in the owner's side, because he didn't want the
workers at his two other, much larger factories to get any ideas.  So he
used the old 'relocating to cut costs' line and closed our plant down,
keeping only the non-union office workers, which even then were supposed
to be let go once the 'relocation' took place.  They're still there, six
years later, and judging by the number of cars in the parking lot I see
whenever I go by there, there's even more people there.  The owner pulls
in about $150-$200 million a year, just as he had before he closed the
place down.

It took me almost three years from the day I lost that job before I found
my present one, with my part of the U.S. being hardest hit by the
recession.  I had exhausted all my unemployment benefits, and I had to go
on welfare, just to get the medical coverage.  I couldn't even get a
part-time job, since everyone that was hiring was only looking for
teenagers, because they could get away with paying them minimum wage,
with no benefits.

Now, on to my current job.  It's 40 miles away, and since I can't afford
a car, I have to take the train in.  I leave my house at 6:15 am and
don't get home until 8:00-9:00 pm, for a job that's only supposed to be
8:30-5:30.  Since this job pays less than my old one, I sometimes have to
work 12-13 hour days with NO break for lunch in order to break even. 
These long hours, plus the nature of the work (data-entry) have led to my
getting carpal tunnel syndrome in both wrists, and cubital tunnel
syndrome in both elbows.  I just had the second operation today.  I might
not even have a job to go back to because of this; I might not be able to
work EVER again.  Very scary when you're my age, or any age for that
matter.

Which leads me to my final reply, directed to Amrohini Sajay and the
other people in Buffalo.  You implied that just because I want better
working and living conditions, and did not once mention the word
'revolution' in gaining those conditions, that I, quote "simply want a
"better" life under capitalism and have no interest in revolutionary
work", and that I am "a practitioner of "economism"", end quote.  Nothing
could be farther from the truth.  I have no love of capitalism,
especially now that it has for all intents and purposes, chewed me up and
spit me out.  Let the revolution come, the sooner, the better.

However, if you want to get a revolution started, writing missives that
no one whom you claim to be writing for can understand, then having the
gall to say that we are 'arrogant' because we tell you  that such
writings in their present state are useless to us, is not the way to go
about it.  If we proletarians had the means to educate ourselves to the
point where we could understand what you're talking about, WE WOULDN'T BE
PROLETARIANS!!!

We don't want post-modernism!  It divides us into intellectual 'haves'
and 'have-nots', just as capitalism divides us into economic 'haves' and
'have-nots'.   By writing and speaking the way you do, you encourage
incohesiveness.

Actually, this brings out a very important point.  Do you know why there
isn't a revolution?  It's because we, the working class, look to the left
and see division.  We see sectarians tooting their own horns. sayng that
they are the only ones with the answers, everyone else is wrong.  Can't
you see that by acting that way, you are giving capitalists what they
want?  Your'e never going to get us to your side until you get your own
houses in order.

Sorry about the novel.

Christi-Ann




Love must be tried and tested and proved.  It must be tried as
though by fire.  And fire burns.
--  Dorothy Day


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