Salutations from an experienced anarchist

[Bea Arthur]

Hello, everybody. I have been a feminist anarchist activist for a number of decades active in a number of movements. My focus is antipoverty work. I also devote myself to other struggles against oppression: anti-racism, anti-classism, anti-homophobia, anti-imperialism, among others. I have been told in real life that I bear a striking resemblance to a certain television personality, so that is why I chose this name. I look forward to talking with all my fellow anarchists and other leftists about issues pertinent to our common struggle for a more just world. Maybe make some friends too! One reason I am here is that I have always been weak when it comes to theory. Hopefully I can learn from you all and teach you some things in the process. Cheers!

[Le Socialiste]

Welcome :)

If you have political questions, you can ask them in the Learning forum. That's why it's there after all!

If you have questions about your account, don't hesitate to send me a PM or ask here.

What are your political ideas? And what's the left scene like at your place?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Welcome Maude:grin:! I'd love to read about your experiences in OCAP and what other people organizing in urban communities can maybe learn from it.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Heya.

I remember being super inspired by OCAP in the nineties; similarly, HAPI/HCAP was probably one of the best things to happen for the left in my hometown in my lifetime (despite its ultimately somewhat pathetic demise).

Anyway, welcome!

Also, sorry, I don't entirely mean this:
Y2gGwTjkcIs

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Welcome to the forum, it is always nice to have some experienced individuals in our ranks.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Welcome :)

If you have political questions, you can ask them in the Learning forum. That's why it's there after all!

If you have questions about your account, don't hesitate to send me a PM or ask here.

What are your political ideas? And what's the left scene like at your place?Wait a minute! Did Q hack your profile?

[Sasha]

Welcome indeed...

[Quail]

Hi, welcome to Revleft :)

[The Idler]

Welcome, I'm curious about anti-classist.

[Ele'ill]

hi

http://sovirtuallyyours.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/bea-kills-dinos.jpg

[Polaris]

Welcome, I'm curious about anti-classist.
Pretty sure OP meant discrimination based on class, as opposed to them being in denial about the existence of classes. I'm also curious of what that entails. Of course the best defense against classism would be the dissolution of classes in the event of a revolution :D

Welcome to RevLeft Bea! I'm sure you'll learn a lot here. Getting involved in debates is one of the best ways to further your knowledge on theory, combined with reading.

[Polaris]

hi

http://sovirtuallyyours.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/bea-kills-dinos.jpg
I'm sure Triceramarx and the new StegoSaurus will like this one.

[Le Socialiste]

Wait a minute! Did Q hack your profile?

Haha, no. Q said he'd be busy for the next couple of days, so he asked the rest of us to keep an eye on Introductions for him.

[ed miliband]

Pretty sure OP meant discrimination based on class, as opposed to them being in denial about the existence of classes. I'm also curious of what that entails. Of course the best defense against classism would be the dissolution of classes in the event of a revolution :D

Welcome to RevLeft Bea! I'm sure you'll learn a lot here. Getting involved in debates is one of the best ways to further your knowledge on theory, combined with reading.

well "anti-classism" in terms of opposing "discrimination based on class" is problematic because it turns class in to an identity, and supposes capitalism is based on the discrimination of the working class, as opposed to its exploitation. it isn't particularly nice to be on the receiving end of snobbery, but as you point out, the aim is to end class society.

and anyway, if 'classism' does exist i'm happy to proclaim myself openly classist.

but hello to the op anyway.

[Bea Arthur]

Thank you all for your kind words to this old lady. Class isn't just a cultural category but it is still a cultural category. I oppose discrimination based on it, just as I oppose capitalism.

[Devrim]

Communists don't understand class as a cultural category at all. It is the relationship to the means of production.

Devrim

[The Idler]

So, @ Bea, working-class culture would be opposed by you? Would you oppose Marx's idea that the working-class would be the liberatory class?

[ed miliband]

So, @ Bea, working-class culture would be opposed by you? Would you oppose Marx's idea that the working-class would be the liberatory class?

i don't think either point is implied by bea's post, in fact the problem with '[anti-]classism' is it rests on an understanding of class that is based on cultural signifiers.

[Bea Arthur]

Communists don't understand class as a cultural category at all. It is the relationship to the means of production.

Devrim

If communists don't understand class to have any cultural component, what did Marx mean about class consciousness and turning a class in itself to a class for itself?

Class is structural, but also contains a cultural component. I am sorry that you don't recognize that class is cultural, too, and can lead to instances of prejudice by people who are ruling class. I oppose both capitalism as a system and prejudice based on somebody's perceived lower class status.

We can walk and chew gum at the same time.

[Skyhilist]

Also, sorry, I don't entirely mean this:
Y2gGwTjkcIs

Sorry, I'm feeling slow today but could you explain the Propagandhi song? I don't really get the reference
Thanks.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Sorry, I'm feeling slow today but could you explain the Propagandhi song? I don't really get the reference
Thanks.

Oh, Bea's profile mentioned being "post-vegan". So, y'know . . .

[Binh]

Welcome!

Would be great to hear your thoughts on this assessment of the Greater Toronto Workers' Assembly: http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=9506

[Skyhilist]

Oh, Bea's profile mentioned being "post-vegan". So, y'know . . .

Ah, I understand now, thanks

[Devrim]

If communists don't understand class to have any cultural component, what did Marx mean about class consciousness and turning a class in itself to a class for itself?

Nothing to do with culture that is to be sure.


Class is structural, but also contains a cultural component. I am sorry that you don't recognize that class is cultural, too, and can lead to instances of prejudice by people who are ruling class. I oppose both capitalism as a system and prejudice based on somebody's perceived lower class status.

The point is not that there is prejudice against people in the working class. So what? The point is that the working class is exploited. This is something that differentiates the working class from all other groups that are oppressed within society, women, gays, ethnic and religious minorities (most members of which are also members of the working class).

Gays, however for example, are not exploited as gays. They are exploited as workers if the are workers.

Devrim

[synthesis]

I think it's also important to note that most, if not all forms of oppression are a product of exploitation, not the other way around. When folks forget that and subsequently endeavor to divorce oppression from exploitation entirely, they're entering into "radical liberal" territory, instead of revolutionary, materialist communism/anarchism.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Nothing to do with culture that is to be sure.



The point is not that there is prejudice against people in the working class. So what? The point is that the working class is exploited. This is something that differentiates the working class from all other groups that are oppressed within society, women, gays, ethnic and religious minorities (most members of which are also members of the working class).

Gays, however for example, are not exploited as gays. They are exploited as workers if the are workers.

Devrim

I think it's also more complicated than that - like, if we understand homophobia as a component of hetero-patriarchy, it's intimately related to the exploited reproductive labour of women, for example.
Similarly, in many cases, "race" is produced by particular divisions of labour, reflecting specificities of exploitation. Saying that "class" is unique in being a relationship defined by exploitation is idealist, insofar as it erases the relationship between class and race, gender, and so on. My point being that the latter obviously don't spring from subjective prejudice, but (no duh, right?) real material relationships. Therefore, insofar as "class" is animates the real material relationships of our society . . . gays may not be exploited as gays per se, but the construction of gayness isn't outside of the question of class / exploitation.


Re: Classism

As for "classism" - the prejudice against the working class is part of bourgeois ideological hegemony; classism needs to be destroyed not within the logic that constructs it, but against it. By which I mean, yeah, classism is a real problem, but also that the solution isn't "ending prejudice against the working class" by teaching everyone to "check their privilege". It's by stringing up the bourgeoisie.