Working Class Movements and the South (split from Leftist Orgs thread in Non-Poli)

[Jimmie Higgins]

SDS in Alabama - awesome! Maybe this belongs in another current thread on this website... but the South, that's my bet for where the next major wave of US class struggle will happen... at least the south will be the turning point IMO.

[praxis1966]

SDS in Alabama - awesome! Maybe this belongs in another current thread on this website... but the South, that's my bet for where the next major wave of US class struggle will happen... at least the south will be the turning point IMO.

I dunno, bruv. Being from there leaves me with doubts about the viability of such a thing. Sure, there are pockets here and there like the one to which Tablo belongs. But by and large, there's such a massive divide between the white working class and working class minorities that it seems like any class based movement there might eat itself.

Beyond that, in a lot of places you can just forget about anything even as simple as unionization. There were a couple of different jobs where I started talking about it as a solution to some of our common problems with coworkers and they all just sort of dismissed it out of hand... and this is an attitude that runs across racial divides. I mean, not for nothing, but one of these jobs I'm talking about was a bouncing gig in which we were literally getting paid $6.15/hr to get punched in the face for a living and people still didn't wanna hear it.

Now I know that revolutionary unionism isn't the only way to build a class-based struggle, but I find that there's even more resistance in those parts of the country to "political" movements. People are depressed to the point both economically and socially that there's sort of an inbred hopelessness about them. And, of course, you're going to have to overcome the fact that in places like my home county where the per capita income is less than $25,000 a year yet a good 70% of the people there vote Republican no matter what.

I dunno. I wish there were some way to change the situation in the South... I really do. I mean, it is my home after all. But I for one would be fucking shocked if any sort of major struggle broke out there anytime soon.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Maybe this belongs in another current thread on this website... but the South, that's my bet for where the next major wave of US class struggle will happen... at least the south will be the turning point IMO.

Have you ever been to the south?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

And, of course, you're going to have to overcome the fact that in places like my home county where the per capita income is less than $25,000 a year yet a good 70% of the people there vote Republican no matter what.

If you don't mind saying, which county are you from? I find it hard to believe that 70% of the population even votes, seeing as nationwide it averages around 50% of eligible voters (which obviously excludes huge numbers of people in this country).

[Il Medico]

If you don't mind saying, which county are you from? I find it hard to believe that 70% of the population even votes, seeing as nationwide it averages around 50% of eligible voters (which obviously excludes huge numbers of people in this country).
The percentage is taken from the number of actual voters, rather the population I think. Regardless, Praxis is right by in large when it comes to the seeming hopelessness of the south. The average income in my county is $30,000 (a little better than Praxis') and in the last election it voted 90% republican. Its not even like the class divide isn't apparent either, its right in our faces. The two biggest bourgeois neighborhoods (and I don't just mean upper middle class dudes, I mean actual capitalist who own companies and are generally rich as all fuck) are built right next to what could for all purposes be called the ghetto of this county. There are people with huge fucking mansions right across the street from run down trailers and crack houses. One of the neighborhoods is exclusively for people who own their own private planes, each 'house' has a bloody fucking hanger and landing strip in the backyard. Despite all that I would be hard pressed to get an ounce of worker solidarity out of a single resident here. All I hear instead is how this group of workers are 'spoiled' because they don't want to give up their hard won benefits and how 'greedy workers' are causing the companies to collapse and jobs to be lost. The general feel here is that workers blame other workers for the economic problems, even though the actual assholes are right across the street.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I dunno, bruv. Being from there leaves me with doubts about the viability of such a thing. Sure, there are pockets here and there like the one to which Tablo belongs. But by and large, there's such a massive divide between the white working class and working class minorities that it seems like any class based movement there might eat itself.

Yeah I'm overstating things a bit, but the South IMO is the necessary hurdle to jump for the US working class because as long as it is a bastion of anti-unionism and racial divisions, it will continue to act as a weight on all US workers.

But I think there is some reason to hope since it seems like radical politics are actually expanding in places like Texas rather rapidly - though it is still a tiny drop in a large-ass Texas bucket. I think also there has been so much fundamental change in the south in the last two generations (move from rural power to urban capitalist power, becoming - along with the southwest - a place where new factories and working class communities have developed) that when shit goes down and people begin fighting it will be like the mid-west was in the past.

But this is all speculation - in fact on the east coast I've never been further south than DC and Baltimore, so what the fuck do I know.

[praxis1966]

If you don't mind saying, which county are you from? I find it hard to believe that 70% of the population even votes, seeing as nationwide it averages around 50% of eligible voters (which obviously excludes huge numbers of people in this country).

Bay County, Florida, actually. Some people don't consider Florida the South, but it's the Panhandle. Culturally, it's much closer to Alabama and maybe Georgia than it is the Peninsula. Florida's essentially three different states within one with radically different kinds of communities depending on what part you're from.

That's a fair point about voter turnout, but I should've been more specific. I was referring to presidential years... Obviously, turnout's going to be much lower during non-presidential years. I just looked it up, and in 2008 over 60% of the eligible population turned out and the county still went McCain. There were several neighboring counties (like Okaloosa, Walton, and Washington) which over 70& turned out and still broke for McCain... I don't know the numbers, but I'd expect the per capita income to actually be lower in those counties than Bay County given what I know about them... They're also even more culturally Southern than Bay County is. Believe it or not, but voter turnout in the Panhandle has been historically significantly higher than the national average from what I understand.


But I think there is some reason to hope since it seems like radical politics are actually expanding in places like Texas rather rapidly - though it is still a tiny drop in a large-ass Texas bucket.

Maybe. But Texas isn't in the South if what we're talking about is the historic South. But like I said, I do acknowledge that there are pockets. The first encounter I had with your peeps, the ISO, was 10 years ago when I marched with several thousand other people on the state capital in an inaugural day protest in 2001... There was a handful of folks from the Atlanta branch that had come down; I had a bit of a chat with them and bought a paper, lol.


The percentage is taken from the number of actual voters, rather the population I think. Regardless, Praxis is right by in large when it comes to the seeming hopelessness of the south. The average income in my county is $30,000 (a little better than Praxis') and in the last election it voted 90% republican.

And if I were a betting man, knowing what I do about statistics and the class divide in my home county, I'd wager a year's worth of paychecks that the median is higher than the mode... Damn rich bastards fucking up the average.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The average income in my county is $30,000 (a little better than Praxis') and in the last election it voted 90% republican.

You mean 90% of the votes cast were for Republicans, right? That's much different than saying 90% of the population voted for Republicans.

You have to remember that a lot of people don't vote. And you have to take into account that huge numbers of people in this country are no eligible to vote (undocumented immigrants, green card holders, felons and people in prison or on parole in many states, people under 18, etc.)

And then you have to see who is voting. The bourgeois and petty-bourgeoisie are way more involved in politics than working people are. They're more likely to donate, to work campaigns, to vote... because they can actually get something out of it.

Look at Chile. There's a rightist administration in power that is loathed by the vast majority of the population. Students are rebelling, workers are striking, etc. People ask how such a person could have got elected. When you look at the numbers it's not so hard to figure out. He won with 3,500,000 votes, which means around 20% of the population voted for him. A huge chunk of those people no doubt belong to the exploiting and oppressing classes.


I just looked it up, and in 2008 over 60% of the eligible population turned out and the county still went McCain.

OK. That's around the average for that cycle. But what percent of the population is eligible? How much of the total population do those who turned out actually represent and what classes do they come from?

Additionally, I have to reject the notion that voting for Democrats somehow means workers are fighting for proletarian interests. Leaving aside what we know about what class both parties represent, the history of the Democrats very clearly shows where they stand in the class war. When a chunk of workers are mobilized to vote for a Democrat it is almost always to prevent someone supposedly worse from getting elected. It's not a proactive activity.

And again, I don't think the majority of working people vote in the United States.

With all that said, I agree with you that the south is a hotbed of reaction. That's tied into it's history and the failure to complete reconstruction after the Civil War. But it doesn't change the fact that where workers exist in the south, they still must fight to maintain their very livelihoods. Whether or not they hold reactionary political positions fed to them by every facet of social life, they still have to go up against the bosses and their apparatuses.

"Marx believed that the conditions of life and work of the proletariat would force the working class to behave in ways that would ultimately transform society. In other words, what Marx said was: We’re not talking about going door-to-door and making workers into ideal socialists. You’ve got to take workers as they are, with all their contradictions, with all their nonsense. But the fact that society forces them to struggle begins to transform the working class. If white workers realize they can’t organize steel unless they organize black workers, that doesn’t mean they’re not racist. It means that they have to deal with their own reality, and that transforms them. Who were the workers who made the Russian Revolution? Sexists, nationalists, half of them illiterate." - Martin Glaberman

The Coal Creek War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Creek_War) in Tennessee shows the possibilities. In the last 19th century, white miners there were being replaced with mostly black prison laborers. The miners repeatedly freed the prisoners and burnt down the stockades they were being held in. These monumental acts, which had more effect than ten thousand vigils could, were done not because someone had convinced them that racism was morally wrong, but rather because it was in their interests to do so.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Maybe this belongs in another current thread on this website... but the South, that's my bet for where the next major wave of US class struggle will happen... at least the south will be the turning point IMO.


Have you ever been to the south?


on the east coast I've never been further south than DC and Baltimore

I thought so.

As I've said before, anyone who spends some time in the south will have a hard time disagreeing with the Sparts' call to "Finish the Civil War."

[Os Cangaceiros]

This is bound to happen, it's human nature. It happens in class rooms, and it'll happen in political meetings as well. Some people at my GMB simply sit around and are silent, compared to some of the more outgoing people. However, one thing I do like, is on certain topics we still go around the room and have each person discuss their opinion or vote on an important topic. It's a good way of opening up and letting everyone say something in a fair manner.

I'd say that it's differences in human nature. I just let it slide, though. Fuck it. :sleep:

Anyway, the South is p. reactionary, but there's a lot of history that goes against that trend, too. You read some labor histories (such as "The Fall of the House of Labor" by David Montgomery) and you'll find stories, such as union members in New Orleans consistently voting down measures in the late 1800's/early 1900's that would've barred black workers from joining their union. Like NHIA said, a lot of those people probably held a negative view of black people, but they realized it was in their interest to unite against the common enemy.

(and yes, I've lived in "the South" before, in Florida and Texas.)

[black magick hustla]

and fuck the south. that place is horrible, except cali

[Jimmie Higgins]

As I've said before, anyone who spends some time in the south will have a hard time disagreeing with the Sparts' call to "Finish the Civil War."

Yeah, no doubt it's shitty and a tough place to be an activist or organizer. I don't know about civil war since it's the capitalists, not the plantation class that rules now... but I get the general point.

I'm not into the long-term prediction game, and so like I said it's speculation and I'll keep it as my pet fantasy of class struggle in the US - while not really banking on it as a near-term development.:D

But I do really feel that when the class struggle does come to the south it will be explosive - because of the entrenched anti-unionism and racism, it's more of a militancy or nothing situation where there is no room for passive half-measure top-down strikes to succeed. Just in order to win basic demands, workers would also have to really have organic initiative and solidarity and take on the whole political structure of the South. Yes, this makes struggle also much more difficult to begin, let alone win, but it would represent a real historic turning point for class struggle.

Maybe we should have a "Pure Wild Speculation" thread after my "southern strategy" and Psy's neo-feudalism speculation.

[praxis1966]

OK. That's around the average for that cycle. But what percent of the population is eligible? How much of the total population do those who turned out actually represent and what classes do they come from?

All of them I would suspect, especially when you consider who was running last time and the fact that the overwhelming majority of the population is pretty frickin' poor. My experience has been that conservatives are much more active at the polls than liberals and leftists. Unfortunately, that includes working class whites in a lot of places in the South. This is especially true in my hometown, where probably less than one percent of the population controls all access to resources and has successfully blocked attempts to industrialize the area. The mythic middle class is virtually non-existent there, resulting in what I would guess would be the majority of the population qualifying as the working poor regardless of race.


Additionally, I have to reject the notion that voting for Democrats somehow means workers are fighting for proletarian interests. Leaving aside what we know about what class both parties represent, the history of the Democrats very clearly shows where they stand in the class war. When a chunk of workers are mobilized to vote for a Democrat it is almost always to prevent someone supposedly worse from getting elected. It's not a proactive activity.

Slow down there, chief. You're reading more into what I was saying than I intended. I wasn't saying that voting Democrat makes you a revolutionary or indicates class consciousness or even that Democrats have anything to offer the working class. You gotta remember I'm an anarcho-syndicalist for one thing. For another, all I was trying to suggest was there was a culturally ingrained strain of conservatism, especially social conservatism. The end result is that they wind up voting against their class interests. That's it, lol. The irony is that these same people vote Republican primarily at the state and federal level. At the local level, they vote Democrat in some kind of cultural holdover from the days before the Dixiecrat split... Y'know, when the Dems were still the Southern party.


And again, I don't think the majority of working people vote in the United States.

Yeah, without even looking up the statistics, I'm inclined to agree with you, at least in terms of the national average.

Anyway, I'm not going to quote the rest of your post because it would just make this one ridiculously long. I'll just say this: I don't disagree with the possibility of a cross-cultural working class movement. What I was describing was the overwhelming odds against it. You're right to mention material conditions as well, but things have been so bad for so long down there that I don't know what more could be done to shake people out of their slumber. I mean, I honestly don't know what the solution is... I can tell you this, though. It may be a pipe dream, but one of these days once I've enough experience as a union organizer I'd love to go back there and shake things up a bit... At least that way nobody could call me a carpetbagger. :D

Anyway, I'd like to split this and perhaps stick it in Politics... I think we, and I include myself in this statement, are doing a disservice to ES and his original question.

[CHE with an AK]

Maybe they finally realize that THIS is coming to a U.S. city near you ...


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0uPSljNE9f4/TNc10itWvGI/AAAAAAAAA_w/uUiZMqSRD08/s1600/rich+poor.jpg