A Provocative Question

[David Morris]

Thank you, too.

On Friday, November 25, 2016, Ray Easton <raymond.lee.easton at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thank you!
>
> ------ Original message------
> *From: *David Morris
> *Date: *Fri, Nov 25, 2016 09:10
> *To: *Mark Kohut;
> *Cc: *Thomas Eckhardt;kelber at mindspring.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml',';kelber at mindspring.com');>;P-list;
> *Subject:*Re: A Provocative Question
>
> http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2016/11/post-identity-dumbassery.html
> Thursday, November 24, 2016
> Post-Identity Dumbassery
>
> <https://thomasnastcartoons.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/uncle-sams-thanksgiving-dinner-11-20-69.jpg>
> *Uncle Sam's Thanksgiving Dinner, Thomas Nast, 1869*
>
> Since the election we've had a whole bunch of pundits (and Bernie Sanders
> <http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/20%2016/11/23/13715164/bernie-sanders-identity-politics-democrats-progressives>)
> blaming the result on "identity politics" and urging Democrats to throw
> their core constituencies under the bus. The worst of these may be this
> one
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-identity-liberalism.html?_r=0>,
> by a humanities professor named Mark Lilla:
>
> One of the many lessons of the recent presidential election campaign and
> its repugnant outcome is that the age of identity liberalism must be
> brought to an end. Hillary Clinton was at her best and most uplifting when
> she spoke about American interests in world affairs and how they relate to
> our understanding of democracy. But when it came to life at home, she
> tended on the campaign trail to lose that large vision and slip into the
> rhetoric of diversity, calling out explicitly to African-American, Latino,
> L.G.B.T. and women voters at every stop. This was a strategic mistake.
>
>
> He says "identity politics" have made liberals "narcissistically unaware
> of conditions outside their self-defined groups, and indifferent to the
> task of reaching out to Americans in every walk of life"--which is pretty
> hilarious because that description certainly applies to the willfully
> ignorant shitheads living in 95% white enclaves who wound up voting for
> Trump. His "post-identity liberalism" "would concentrate on widening its
> base by appealing to Americans as Americans and emphasizing the issues that
> affect a vast majority of them"--in other words, ignoring any issues that
> make white people uncomfortable. (*Ixnay on the Ackblay Iveslay
> Attersmay.*)
>
> About halfway through, we get to this passage that gives away the game:<
> blockquote>National politics in healthy periods is not about
> “difference,” it is about commonality. And it will be dominated by whoever
> best captures Americans’ imaginations about our shared destiny. Ronald
> Reagan did that very skillfully, whatever one may think of his vision. So
> did Bill Clinton, who took a page from Reagan’s playbook.You can take
> your "commonality" and shove it up your ass, dumbfuck. Reagan harped on "welfare
> queens
> <http://www.salon.com/2015/09/27/ronald_reagans_welfare_queen_myth_how_the_gipper_kickstarted_the_war_on_the_working_poor/>"
> and started his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia,_Mississippi#Murders_of_three_civil_rights_workers> with
> a speech extolling "states' rights"
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan's_Neshoba_County_Fa%20ir_>. Bill
> Clinton picked a fight
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Souljah_moment> with a prominent
> hip-hop artist and executed a retarded black man
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Ray_Rector>. That's not rejecting
> "identity politics"; that's practicing *white* identity politics. (And
> yes, Clinton and Reagan differed in both magnitude and relative malignancy
> of their white identity politics. But they both practiced it.)
>
> And that's what Lilla is arguing for: white identity politics--a kinder
> gentler white identity politics, with, y'know, less cross-burning and shit.
> That's what all these critics of "identity politics" are arguing for,
> either explicitly (like Lilla) or implicitly.
>
>
> On Friday, November 25, 2016, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','mark.kohut at gmail.com');>> wrote :
>
>>  i was reminded yesterday by David Kipen that Pynchon wrote of the
>> inability of the student (New) Left to connect with the working class in
>> the intro to SLOW LEARNER.
>> And this reminds me that it is still identity politics to think and say
>> 'white working class' as I and most are doing. Always respect Pynchon' s
>> precision, I repeat to myself.
>>
>> New relevant books: Strangers in their Own Land ( excerpts around), White
>> Trash and Hillbilly Elegy.
>>
>> I learned from a polling strategist that since race is ascertainable from
>> voting records, they report and the mainstream media simply uses "whites"
>> and "blacks" ( along with Hispanics and Others (say) in their reductionist
>> way, fostering the bad shit.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> > On Nov 24, 2016, at 3:09 PM, Thomas Eckhardt <th
>> omas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Am 23.11.2016 um 20:48 schrieb kelber at mindspring.com:
>> >>
>> >> http://fortune.com/2016/11/11/trump-voters-lynn-nottage/
>> >
>> > Very interesting, thank you.
>> >
>> > I would like to learn more. Are there any other contemporary writers
>> addressing the situation of the working class in the US today? The impact
>> of the war on terror, the impact of globalisation?
>> >
>> >
>> > -
>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>
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