the class war has gone local in michigan. the vestigially republican state senate fights the democratic state legislature and governor to a standstill on whether the state will start having payless paydays soon. michigan and montana have this in common: we both are faced with unrealistic legislators who have taken grover norquist's pledge to oppose all tax increases. if engler's wrecking crew had not had the state for the previous decade, we would not be faced with shutting down all manner of governmental services now. even republicans support some of those services, like education and prisons.

both states need income from taxes to support governmental services. international bigwigs fly into and out of one or the other of detroit's two usual airports without addressing the misery that lives on in detroit. we ordinary humans have to solve it for ourselves without waiting for the elites to help us out. all national economies are made of local economies. on that we can agree.

michigan has the 17th best wind resources in the nation, and we should be installing wind turbines and solar roof panels. instead, detroit edison (dte) wants to charge the laker elementary school in the thumb of michigan $250,000 to be connected to the electricity grid. the state should have the power to issue a standard that says this is what you must do to hook up to the power grid so that we could use our wind and solar resources wisely.

there will always be ways to discriminate against good people. while we still have a world, now is the time to move forward in capturing the resources that we have.

Let's build strong local economies worldwide, of small farmers, craftsmen and merchants, and informed, civic-minded citizens trading and voting in the better interests of the society. Is everyone finished switching to Linux?

I have read a lot of high minded comments on this post. Can we get real for a minute? Color does not matter. Gender does not matter. IQ matters. A type 'A' personality matters. Excellent education matters.
The labor vs capital struggle will go on untill the human race is as homogenous as pancake batter, which is to say forever. As long as there are type A personalities with high IQs and top notch educations they will rise to be the leaders of capital by hook or crook and these 'titans of industry' know that almost every 'labor leader' has a price. Occasionally a labor leader comes along that refuses to be bought, fights the good fight, resists the threats of big capital and for their efforts they sometimes become martyrs. Statues are erected in their memory and great speaches are made on the anniverseries of their early demise. Assination is a last resort for big business but it is just another tool at their disposal. Usually the labor leader realizes that he/she really likes life and doesnt want to leave their family for an uncertain hearafter so they take the money and shut up.
American History is full of accounts of labor movements, socialist movements, communist movements of every stripe. These movements have, for the most part, been swept into the waste bin of history, especially since the Regan misadministration. All of the hard won victories of labor over the last 150 years were gone almost overnight. Now we have multinational corporations so large that they dwarf governments. Governments are at their beck and call. Big capital is on the verge of erasing the last remnants of our social safety net, free education, free libraries, social security, medicare, head start, environmental protection, and many other programs that big biz considers a hinderance to their bottom line.
Its going to take more than a few people standing around on corners with signs protesting this or that to stop these multinational jugernauts. Perhaps when the free bread and circus stops Americans will unite and make a collective effort to restore the middle class but since most are poorly educated and easily misled I dont see this happening.

Well, this would make perfect sense to a Republican: Let the corporations pay $500 a year in taxes so they can contribute millions to finance political campaigns to those who vote on legislation that gives corporations more power over the people.

Edmund Morgan, 'American Slavery, American Freedom'
If you were a colonist, you knew that your technology was superior to the Indians'. You knew that you were civilized, and they were savages...But your superior technology had proved insufficient to extract anything. The Indians, keeping to themselves, laughed at your superior methods and lived from the land more abundantly and with less labor than you did...And when your own people started deserting in order to live with them, it was too much...So you killed the Indians, tortured them, burned their villages, burned their cornfields. It proved your superiority, in spite of your failures. And you gave similar treatment to any of your own people who succumbed to their savage ways of life. But you still did not grow much corn...

"The question then becomes, why is their such resistance to banding together when the "glue" (shared characteristic) is economic discrimination and oppression?"

Thanks, Rebel Farmer. That is precisely the question I was addressing. Many people have not gained advantages through the labor movement, for example, because there are other kinds of oppression (racial, ethnic, gender, etc) that continue to keep them subordinate. So many people in these groups don't trust the labor movement, since it has perpetuated their own subordination. Yes, this benefits the bosses, but the people who think they are gaining advantage need to be educated that they are simply supporting a system that will bite them in the ass in the end. As kivals points out, these divisions are arbitrary.

If these divisions are not acknowledged within a larger social justice movement, then subordinate groups will not join. If we pretend that these divisions are simply created by the ruling class to maximize their control, we cannot address our own thinking and our own complicity in maintaining these hierarchical power relations, and that is what will bring about tranformation.

That is what Gramsci argues with regard to hegemony: he wanted to understand how power works in ways that naturalize these hierarchies and so keep people from revolting. If culture teaches that it's "natural" that blacks, Hispanics, women, Mexican nationals, etc. are inherently subordinate, then it is just that they be treated accordingly. That is what has to be exposed for revolution to occur, so that we don't just exchange the old boss for a new one.

kivals: I am arguing that people have to be taught how power works to maintain itself. It is really demeaning to argue, as you do, that somehow the discrimination suffered by short people or stutterers is equivalent to the discrimination and real suffering of black slaves, Hispanics rounded up and deported, women, sometimes supporting children, denied jobs or decent pay, or any of the other examples of real suffering suffered by real people becasue of social categorization. I am arguing that to deny this kind of historical awareness on the grounds that it is "too divisive" is to deny the different ways that people suffer oppression and thus to not really understand it so we can guard against it.

It will only strengthen the larger movement if people understand how these divisions have maintained hierarchies of power. Power must always be interrogated and exposed on all levels. This is not an academic exercise, but the only way we can move beyond the current mess.

Liberation is an ongoing process. If short people, stutterers, etc. do suffer injustice, we need to expose that too.

I agree with both jp and kivals comments. I have tried to integrate the two perspectives and here is what I have come up with:

Kivals is right about the fact that people try to gain advantages through their association with one or more groups with distinct characteristics. Historically this has been the only way to deal with prejudice and discrimiation. Humans also seem to naturally gravitate towards the safety/power of being members of tribes or distinguishable groups. What I think jp is rightly trying to point out is that we need to learn to identify with a new overarching group that shares the characteristic of being economically oppressed by "coroprate fascist predators". The question then becomes, why is their such resistance to banding together when the "glue" (shared characteristic) is economic discrimination and oppression?

When I see economically oppressed Americans who are lossing their jobs because of outsourcing by greedy corporations, they sincerely don't seem to get the connection between the lack of labor protections in free trade agreements and their current situation. Americans also don't seem to get that they are now on the treadmill in the "race to the bottom" that has already affected Mexico and a number of other countries. When countries have become impoverished because of NAFTA, CAFTA, the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank, immigrants wind up north of the border trying to survive. Many Americans don't see the connection and blame the immigrants (those brown skinned ones) for the economic problems of the U.S. For some reason many Americans don't understand that ALL impoverished peoples and nations share the same burden for the same reasons - corporate greed. and power.

Most of us, of every culture and in every land, are all in the same leaky boat. So when do we stop throwing shipmates overboard because the are the wrong gender, color, religion, or whatever? When do we start figuring out that if we ALL don't start bailing out the boat, we're all going to drown?

jp,

The problem with identifying all the various groups that have been oppressed is that it is completely arbitrary and very divisive.

Darker skinned people of African descent have been more oppressed than those of lighter skin. African-Americans generally have been more oppressed than other non-whites. Those other non-whites were more oppressed than Southern and Eastern European immigrants, who were oppressed more than those from Western and Northern Europe. And certainly more recent immigrants have been oppressed more than immigrants that arrived a little earlier. Those who lived in an area with fewer of those of their original nationality were oppressed more than those who lived in an area with a higher percentage of those of their nationality. And of course non-English speakers were more oppressed than English speakers.

Atheists and agnostics were oppressed more than those who believed. Deists were oppressed more than those who believed in organized religion. Those who practiced Eastern religions were oppressed more than those who practiced Western religions. Jews were oppressed more than Christians. Catholics were oppressed more than Protestants. Baptists were oppressed more than Episcopalians.

Short people were more oppressed than tall people. Unhealthy people were oppressed more than healthy people. Physically unattractive people were oppressed more than physically attractive people. People with acne were oppressed more than people with good skin. People with poor posture were oppressed more than people with good posture. People with brown eyes were oppressed more than people with blue eyes. Overweight people were oppressed more than thin people. Clumsy people were oppressed more than athletic people. Stutterers are oppressed more than those who speak mellifluously. Those with poorly educated parents are oppressed more than those with well-educated parents, etc... etc... etc...

The point is that there are innumerable ways to group people, and every individual belongs to innumerable groups. And the most attractive, or most politically powerful, oppressed groups often get the most advantages, regardless of whether the individuals who belong to such group have themselves actually been oppressed more than most people overall. Surely a rich, beautiful, healthy, well-educated white woman of Northern European heritage has had it much better than a short, ugly, poor, uneducated Southern European immigrant man, but she would get special advantages.

As long as people are given incentives to divide themselves into such groups, they will use their mental energies doing so, and they will identify themselves as such, making it so much more difficult to form a group large enough and powerful enough to fight the corporate fascist predators. And that's just the way the predators like it. They must thank their lucky stars for Gramsci.

fligloot: I still have clothes with their label! I was talking about the pattern of discrimination that existed in many of the big unions. I know that is not the entire story, but it is typical. I am thinking for example of the miners unions in Arizona that discriminated against Mexican miners, some of whom were US citizens. Women, blacks, others were typically excluded from unions. The Wobblies were the one union that tried to show that the bosses exploited everyone, but they were "reds" of course.

jp: You said "The history of the labor movement, for example, is one in which fair wages and decent benefits are conceived of as the province of white males only."

Have you never heard of the ILGWU?

I live in Texas and you can definitely see a pattern down here: small towns are drying up and the populace is being herded into the larger cities. I'm not sure about the reasons for this trend, other than when we're crowded together in a small area, we're easier to control.
Jobs in Small Town America are so scarce and pay so little, it's almost impossible to live out there. This is a relatively new trend, over the past 25-30 years. I don't believe it's any coincidence that it started with the "Reagan Revolution." The question is the same all over, "What's the matter with Kansas?" The people that are creating this situations are the same people small town folk vote for time and again.

kivals: it would be great if there were one monolithic group of folk called "common," but there is not. The history of the labor movement, for example, is one in which fair wages and decent benefits are conceived of as the province of white males only. Any real social justice movement must recognize that networks of oppression based on race, ethnicity, class, gender, nationality, exist and have caused real suffering to real people. These are not simply irritating diversions created by "the economic elites." They are the kinds of categories and divisions that determine who has power and who does not. Any movement to be successful and transformative must embrace all people who are oppressed, acknowledge that oppression takes different forms for different "kinds" of people, and make sure that the goal is one of equality and justice for all, and not just a change in who gets to be the new elite.

ZeroPointField: I live in a small town also, but there are clear class lines, for example business owners who pay meagre wages and who tell employees who ask for a raise that they can be replaced by 17 year-olds who will work for even lower wages, or larger employers and chains that openly engage in union busting. We also have many Hispanic people who are hired to do very specific jobs, are paid very low wages, and who now live in constant fear of ICE raids. Women are typically paid less than men. In the local Safeway supermarket in town, in the 22 years we have lived here, there has never been a female manager, while male managers come and go regularly. It would be nice if these irritating problems did not exist to make it so hard to organize resistance to corporate control and oppression, but sometimes you have to acknowledge that different people suffer differently under corporate controlled economies.

Here in Minnesota the Democrats have also tried to push for property tax relief, but will certainly be facing a veto from our right-wing governor Tim Pawlenty.

There are several important factors at play, though. One is the basic tax rate -- that is, given a property assessed at $X, what is the tax rate on it? Arguably, the more underlying factor is: what causes property values to shoot so high in the first place?

Predatory lending, unregulated banks, speculation, investment groups & corporations, distant/absentee owners, etc. Taxes are important to get on top of, but in many regards they are symptoms of much deeper problems. Runaway lending causes real estate to always be just out of reach, people borrowing too much into their own equity, etc.

It's fine and dandy for some people, maybe. But irresponsibility (on the part of many homebuyers and lenders alike) has huge impacts on those of us who'd like to owe as little as possible to the banks. We definitely need property tax relief, and should make it possible progressively via those who are most able to pay. But also we need to reign in the banks and distant land speculators who drive local values (and therefore assessments, upon which taxes are based) into the stratosphere.

ZeroPointField,

Racial divides, cultural divides, and now the gender divide all make it more difficult for the common people to band together to defend themselves against predatory economic elites. But either people are going to have to find ways to bridge those divides or perish.

I think it is only natural that such movements come from small town America - where people from all classes tend to rub shoulders more easily. However, you would not have such an article come out of a small town with mixed race now, would you? Because then you have to deal with that first, and who wants to do that?