A New Rhetoric (a Theory of Praxis)

[synthesis]

I'm sure you've all noticed that over the last twenty years or so - perhaps longer - the right-wing has been making a concerted effort to frame their arguments in 'progressive' terms. That's why we see phrases like "reverse discrimination" and "wars of liberation," when said right-winger is in reality referring to entirely reactionary concepts and agendas.

I'm wondering if we might be able to brainstorm ways in which we might do the opposite, or, rather, the converse; that is, framing revolutionary ideas in right-wing terminology; using their rhetoric against them, instead of ours against us.

One way of doing this, I believe, would be to link the deterioration of their favorite reactionary institutions to the processes of capitalism:

• The Church - argue that the decline of religion is not a result of any sort of "secular" or "progressive agenda" - capitalism only uses religion insofar as is necessary to maintain authority, and when it is no longer needed, it is discarded as ponderous ideological and institutional baggage

• The Family - argue that modern capitalism demands things like multiple-income families; that financial stress, intensified by capitalism, leads to divorce; that if poverty was reduced and sexual education was to receive more funding, abortions would be largely unnecessary

• The Nation - argue that capitalism demands both outsourcing and immigration as a result of competitive pricing, both in terms of consumer goods and in the labor market

And so on. But if you do this, you have to be careful you're not just feeding paleoconservative/primitivist tendencies, which would only make the problem worse. You have to then show them why socialism could solve their problems, too, even if you differ from them in opinion; you have to show them why we need to go forward, not backwards, and how to go about doing it; you have to speak their language while you're educating them.

Any other suggestions?

[Communist]

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Upon request of Kun Fana, from Theory to OI.

Moved.

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[RGacky3]

Thats all ready being done by American Progressives (the soft left), and some far left tendancies.

Some Progressives have been using the term corporatism, I've even heard corporate communism, to discribe the current situation, they have been talking about the public option in market terms, Michael Moore made great effort in his documentary capitalism a love story, and many on the right have as well, to make an outreach to religious folk, they have began to describe things as unamerican playing of the socalled "American" (I know its rediculous nationalistic rhetoric) values of equality and human rights. The Leninist left will NEVER be able to make an American appeal (in my opinion for good reason) because of their soviet fetish, their always going back to guys who have been dead for decades. The More libertarian socialist left in the US has much more American roots, with the Unions, with the civil rights movement, with the old socialists such as Eugene Debs.

The American far left is making progress, the Leninist part of that is not, not will it ever, because of the fact that they are stuck in 1917.

[Jimmie Higgins]

As the comrade said, progressives are largely attempting this, but I think it's putting the cart before the horse. Well if you aren't organized it doesn't matter; and so progressive word-framing is just as good as conservative framing (even better because it at least looks more like reality most of the time) but since they don't have the full backing of the establishment and rich right now and have not organized as effectively as the right, the right still rules the establishment discourse.

The right-wing can push it's crazy Orwellian language because they are organized and their opposition isn't - and the "official" Democratic party "opposition" actually enables it. McCain says "drill baby drill" and Obama doesn't challenge it, he says "drill baby drill right now while you look for 'alternative energy' - so the basic logic goes unchallenged. The right says that "white christian males" are oppressed and Obama and the Democrats don't riase the realities of real racism in the US (most of the time - Obama has when pushed) and by not challenging these assumptions, they are making the idiotic concept of "reverse-racism" legitimate.

The problem is that "experts", academics, politicians, and people from think-tanks can go out unchallenged and say: "of course racism no longer exists". But it's a harder argument to make if there is a civil rights movement exposing and challenging racism in your community. So organizing workers and students in movements and to make their own demands will help shift the language back towards something resembling reality.

They always say that war = democracy or that subservience and acceptance of the staus-quo will give us freedom, when these arguments don't fly, that's because there is an effective counter to the lies.

[mikelepore]

There's nothing idiotic about the concept of reverse racism. The problem does exist. It happens when people try to correct racism by imposting numerical formulas that assume that people are one uniform group confronting another uniform group, instead of seeing the particular histories of human beings. The court case that did the most to add the term "reverse racism" to the American lexicon was Allan Bakke versus University of California, 1978. The white applicant to the medical school had been informed that he was being denied admission because the openings for white students were all full, and the only remaining openings were those that were reserved for non-whites. The university's practice was a racist one because it assumed without considering any case data that every non-white applicant was previously inhibited in academic considerations due to racism, so that a reversal of those past offenses and an order of immediate acceptance for any non-white applicant would be the associated remedy. The policy used race to categorize people as though their life histories were all homogenous according to group label. It was simply a case of saying: how much light does your skin reflect, okay, this is the assumption about your history of victimization, and this is the specific action that reverses the events in your past.

The left will never be able to organize the working class until the left stops jumping on every bandwagon that "sounds radical" even if logical faults are present in it.

[RGacky3]

I agree with you, there is such a thing as reverse racism, but the right wing has made it sound MUCH MUCH bigger than it is and applied it to things that are clearly not reverse racism, and it has come to the point that a discussion of reverse racism within the larger context of racism almost ends up being percieved as a defence as the right wings racist ideology. Its a shame.

The right-wing can push it's crazy Orwellian language because they are organized and their opposition isn't - and the "official" Democratic party "opposition" actually enables it. McCain says "drill baby drill" and Obama doesn't challenge it, he says "drill baby drill right now while you look for 'alternative energy' - so the basic logic goes unchallenged.

Thats largely true. The right wing in America is extreamly organized and extreamly well funded, (this is also a problem for them because they follow a strict party line which alienates them from a lot of voters).

The problem with the democrats is that when it comes to real issues you have the corporatist democrats, the progressives, and then you have the politicians, the corporatists are really almost no different to the republicans when it comes to socio-economics and they get a lot of corporate funding (obviously), the progressives get their power more from grass roots funding and populism, the politicians try to play the best of both worlds, Obama being the prime example, he campains somewhat progressive, but he rules more corporatist, the poletician democrats will almost always side with the corporatists, even though the progressive stance is much more popular simply because the corporatists are seen as more "moderate" and being "moderate" gives politician democrats raging boners.

Thats the problem, the real progressives in power are drowned out by corporatists and politicians (while they try and ride on their thunder), whereas republicans are united in their idiocy and will ALL stick to the party line without question, whereas many democrats, in the attempt to look "moderate" will accept as many of the republican lines as possible while still trying to hold on to progressive voters. Its really a shame.

However with the latest elections it seams that progressives are gaining some ground, simply by the fact that the left is sick of Obama, and Obama style politicians.

Once we get some real progressives the language will start changing. Alan Grayson does exactly what you are suggesting, in congress using bold statements and hyperbolies and essencially playing the right wing at their own game, one of my favorate house moments was when Anthony Weiner went up and just said "the republican party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the health insurance industry," then when told to revise he said "Every republican I have Ever mett ..." THATs what we need from progressives in the US.

[Jimmie Higgins]

No, there is no "reverse-racism" only racism. Racism is not the same as bigotry or racial quotas, it is systematic oppression. Racial quotas ARE NOT upholding a class and racial hierarchy and OPPRESSING white males as we see with racism. What's happening in Arizona is racism not because people are making assumptions based on ethnicity about someone's immigration status but because it is racial profiling designed to keep members of a particular oppressed group in fear, with fewer rights, and a second class social and legal status.

Racial quotas to increase numbers of underrepresented groups does not cause racial inequality, it is just a more or less effective (depending on your view of it) attempt to rectify racial, economic, and gender inequalities. To attempt to equate that with a systematic effort to maintain the class order of society through making blacks or Latinos or LGBT people second class citizens who are denied the same rights in the court, on the job, in housing, in political representation... is just odious.

The idea that a radical would support a reactionary concept like "reverse racism" is a bit shocking.

[RGacky3]

No, there is no "reverse-racism" only racism. Racism is not the same as bigotry or racial quotas, it is systematic oppression. Racial quotas ARE NOT upholding a class and racial hierarchy and OPPRESSING white males as we see with racism. What's happening in Arizona is racism not because people are making assumptions based on ethnicity about someone's immigration status but because it is racial profiling designed to keep members of a particular oppressed group in fear, with fewer rights, and a second class social and legal status.

Racial quotas to increase numbers of underrepresented groups does not cause racial inequality, it is just a more or less effective (depending on your view of it) attempt to rectify racial, economic, and gender inequalities. To attempt to equate that with a systematic effort to maintain the class order of society through making blacks or Latinos or LGBT people second class citizens who are denied the same rights in the court, on the job, in housing, in political representation... is just odious.

The idea that a radical would support a reactionary concept like "reverse racism" is a bit shocking.

Racism is not only systematic racism, the hill billy that hates black people and hispanics has nothing to do with systemic racism, its just ignorance and bigotry. Affermative action is not racism against white people at all, but its counter productive, it puts emphasis on race rather than trying to take it out of the picture. When I talk about reverse racism I'm talking more about a backlash that individuals have, who are part of a group that were the victim of racism, I'm not talking about something systemic, obviously there is no systemic oppression of white people because they are white or christians because they are christians, thats rediculous.

What the right wing consideres reverse racism is only them not having absolute hegemony over American culture, which is rediculous, its like a king saying he's being oppressed because he can't be king anymore.

[synthesis]

As the comrade said, progressives are largely attempting this, but I think it's putting the cart before the horse. Well if you aren't organized it doesn't matter; and so progressive word-framing is just as good as conservative framing (even better because it at least looks more like reality most of the time) but since they don't have the full backing of the establishment and rich right now and have not organized as effectively as the right, the right still rules the establishment discourse.

From the EDL thread:

I've gotta say that it's impressive how the EDL have attracted so many working class people, while the left is now heavily populated by the middle classes.

How we frame our arguments does matter. Surely you're not suggesting that we should wait for "the full backing of the establishment and the rich," or even that such a thing is desirable.

The problem is that "experts", academics, politicians, and people from think-tanks can go out unchallenged and say: "of course racism no longer exists". But it's a harder argument to make if there is a civil rights movement exposing and challenging racism in your community. So organizing workers and students in movements and to make their own demands will help shift the language back towards something resembling reality.

Socialism and anti-racism are overlapping struggles, but they are not synonymous. Let's be very clear about this: socialism in America will require a broad base of support among white male workers. I'm certainly not suggesting that we should eschew one struggle in favor of the other, but we need to learn how to frame our agenda differently for different audiences.

[Jimmie Higgins]

From the EDL thread:

How we frame our arguments does matter. Surely you're not suggesting that we should wait for "the full backing of the establishment and the rich," or even that such a thing is desirable.

No, I was showing how the liberals and progressive organizations ARE attempting to change the terms of the mainstream political debate, but it is ineffective because they do not have as full backing of the establishment like the right and they are not as organized as the right.

It goes without saying that we will not be funded or backed by the ruling class, so we need to be organized. Sure it is important to frame our arguments in ways that relate to people, but it doesn't mean anything without organization. We could have wonderful journals with excellent arguments and all new terminology to counter the right's doublespeak, but without a real connection to the working class, without an organized way to put our concepts into action, it won't matter how good our terminology and framing of arguments is.

So it's not that framming is unimportant, but that I think we can do that but it won't really be effective until organization catches up to the propagandizing.

Socialism and anti-racism are overlapping struggles, but they are not synonymous. Let's be very clear about this: socialism in America will require a broad base of support among white male workers. I'm certainly not suggesting that we should eschew one struggle in favor of the other, but we need to learn how to frame our agenda differently for different audiences.

As Malcolm X said, you can't have capitalism without racism, so I think the opposite is true too - you can't take down capitalism without also taking on racism. I don't see why in the world we would want to talk to a white audience about racism differently than we would talk to a black or latino audience. Of course there will need to be a lot of militancy and radicalism among white workers if there is going to be a working class revolution, but those white workers are not going to be really radical or militant if they do not at least recognize that racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia are the primary tools for keeping us powerless.

To me the thing about "controlling the language" is that conservatives and liberals do this because they do not want the general population to understand politics or how things really work in our society. They mislead people about health-care or the history of slavery (Texas schools) and make socialism and even "liberal" into "bad words" because they just want to push people around and confuse them and get them to go along with whatever the ruling class wants us to go along with.

Our job, is not to get people to agree to our political positions through vocabulary slight of hand - our job should be to reveal how the system really works and call out the double-speak and common myths of the other side. So when the politicians and media call people "illegals" then yes, we should insist that they are actually "undocumented workers" because "illegals" is a smear designed to promote nativism. In regards to how we can use the right-wing concepts against them: I think the section in the Communist Manifesto about opposition to communism provides a pretty good model (Here are my modernized versions of how those arguments might go):

- The right claims that we want to destroy the family: but capitalism already does this by causing both parents to have to work. It already does this by causing people to have economic and social stress that leads to substance abuse, violence, crime, or just plain exhaustion - all of which tear families apart.

- The right claims that communists want to take your personal possessions and will kick you out of your house after a revolution: the reality is that we want EVERYONE to have decent things in their life and a safe home, it's capitalism that keeps people from having their needs and wants met through inequality; it's capitalism that kicks thousands of families a year out of their homes.

- The right claims that socialists want the government to control our lives: it's the opposite - we want more democracy in society and democracy at the workplace; we want the government to have no involvement in our personal choices. In fact we go much further in demanding an end to government interference in our lives - we don't want the US government to interfere in the lives of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Puerto Rico, North Korea, South Korea, Palestine, or Iran either!

[mikelepore]

Racism is not the same as bigotry or racial quotas, it is systematic oppression.

That particular usage of the word "racism" was introduced mainly in the 1980s by college professors who thought of themselves as being situated somewhere along the spectrum from liberal to leftist.

For the previous fifty years the word "racism" had always refered to certain kinds of ideas or beliefs:

(1) There was the definition that almost all of the dictionaries emphasized, which was -- the theory or the belief that human qualities or characteristics are determined mainly by race.

(2) It was a term that fascists used to describe their own beliefs, a usage that began when the fascist Lawrence Dennis called his own theory "racism" in his 1936 book "The Coming American Fascism." That occurred soon after Trotsky had already defined "racism" as the fascists' "bombastic form of chauvinism" in his 1933 "What is National Socialism?"

(3) There was the usage popular among people, like myself, who dislike any kind of sectional loyalty, and who promote "one-world" ideas. In this way of thinking, if your self-identification or the object of your loyalty is all of humanity, that's humanism; if your self-identification or the object of your loyalty is a nation, that's nationalism; if your self-identification or the object of your loyalty is a race, that's racism.

For about fifty years, these various uses of the word "racism", however different, were alike in that they used the word to refer to a kind of ideas, beliefs or feelings.

Suddenly, in the 1980s, a few left-sympathetic academic authors and speakers began to insist that everyone else was using the word incorrectly, and that the word "really" refers, not to certain ideas or beliefs, but to the historical pattern of power and oppression. A few individuals assumed the authority to announce a new "real" meaning for an old word. A lot of left organizations quickly hopped on this trend and began to insist that the recently suggested meaning of the word was the right one.

This is an example of the tendency of the left reflexively to jump on bandwagons, and then to act bewildered when we are unable to communicate effectively with most of the working class.

[synthesis]

It goes without saying that we will not be funded or backed by the ruling class, so we need to be organized. Sure it is important to frame our arguments in ways that relate to people, but it doesn't mean anything without organization. We could have wonderful journals with excellent arguments and all new terminology to counter the right's doublespeak, but without a real connection to the working class, without an organized way to put our concepts into action, it won't matter how good our terminology and framing of arguments is.

Sure. I just think that it's hard to organize people when they are hostile to your ideology. We should first be finding common ground with working class people who might hold reactionary convictions, then patiently and respectfully educate them as to why those convictions hurt us all.

[synthesis]

That particular usage of the word "racism" was introduced mainly in the 1980s by college professors who thought of themselves as being situated somewhere along the spectrum from liberal to leftist.

I agree that racism, as a term, should not be limited strictly to systematic oppression - oppressed people can certainly be racist against one another, and internalized racism is a real problem - but the context of "reverse racism," this is all really just semantics. "Reverse racism" is a meaningless phrase within the socialist paradigm. The only problem with "reverse discrimination" is that it is simply an arbitrary means to a noble end, and an impotent one at that.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Sure. I just think that it's hard to organize people when they are hostile to your ideology. We should first be finding common ground with working class people who might hold reactionary convictions, then patiently and respectfully educate them as to why those convictions hurt us all.

Yes, ultimately we need to do this, but I think first we need to prioritize organizing the people who are already 80-90% there - most of whom are workers. I think there are quite a lot of people - particularly right now - who are more in agreement with us on immediate reforms or many other short-term things as demonstrated by the student and worker protests against budget cuts in California and New Jersey; the gay marriage protests; and the huge immigrant rights protests.

I think the effective thing would be winning the people already struggling against the system to seeing why radical politics and strategy as opposed to liberal politics and tactics (lobbying and voting in friendly politicians) is necessary to be effective in labor or social struggles. Central to that is also winning people to understanding class and why the system can not be made to work for workers.

This is the foundation for other developments in my opinion. With this solid "base" then we can begin to rebuild a proletarian culture, consciousness and militancy, and gain the social weight that can not be ignored or ridiculed by the ruling class (like they do to working people and radicals alike currently).

IMO the right did not gain the political momentum from controlling the framing of the debate, they first build up a strong base which included think tanks as well as grass-roots forces. For example while liberals rely on low-paid college students for foot-soldiers and do not teach them (for the most part) how to make and win arguments, but instead how to gather signatures and collect money. The right - particularly the christian right has build up a large following and they TRAIN their faithful how to convert people, how to make a fuss in their schools about the teaching of Evolution, how to argue against atheist arguments, how to protest Planned Parenthood, and so on.

I think that's what we need to be doing - they have it easier because they can use religion as a shield against criticism and, more importantly, their goals are mostly aligned with ruling class goals and so they get more funding and legitimacy from the media and politicians. They will always be able to pump out more propaganda than us because the media, schools, and politicians are all dependent on the system. So even if our propaganda was 100% perfect (a lot of it already is) we wouldn't be able to get these ideas out there without that grassroots base.

That being said, it's always good to try and make our arguments more effective and more relevant to all workers, so I hope other people can add their suggestions about specific ways we can all do that.

[Bud Struggle]

I just want to say--thank you to all you posters--this is an exceptional thread.