Think about political discussions..."If you aren't for one class, you are for the other..."

[T.Ruth2power]

Think about political discussions (and politics is always a "discussion"). Think about it in either the narrow terms of the "left" (ha-ha-ha) websites you visit or in the larger sense of politics in America, as a whole. What is the basis... the most fundamental basis ... for debate? What is the common language of that "debate"?

You can fill in the gory details of the problem: on the one hand, anything goes; on the other hand anything is acceptable and must be accepted (in the name of tolerance). Opinions are personal, categories are arbitrary and foggy, and the only basis for commonality is a very loose and changing list of policy statements that could just as easily be their opposites. It is not just mysticism and pop-theories that are at issue. There is a century worth of slogans, assumptions, "facts" which are "well known" or "commonly known"... Even simple logic is not required.

Yes, class perspective is the key to it but the political chaos extends so far that even that is tough to put your finger on in a practical way.

Materialism, "cold" pursuit of the "truth" for practical reasons, basic class partisanship, a method for determining what is correct and accurate and what is not, agreement on these methods and the history from which these are derived - these are the most rudimentary tools of a political movement.

Otherwise, everything just spins...

like water in a toilet bowl...

just to be dumped into the sewer...

and get piped into the Idea Treatment Plant...

only to go through the same cycle once again...

It ain't "philosophy"... It's a common language and method... very rigorously adhered to... at a hundred different levels of sophistication...

but fundamentally starting with the soldiers' quote in John Reed:

"If you aren't for one class, you are for the other..."

[ConsAreLiars]

1. "Which Side Are You On?" by Florence Reese

Pete Seeger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iAIM02kv0g

Which Side Are You On?
by Florence Reese

Come all of you good workers
Good news to you I'll tell
Of how that good old union
Has come in here to dwell

(Chorus)
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

My daddy was a miner
And I'm a miner's son
And I'll stick with the union
Till every battle's won

They say in Harlan County
There are no neutrals there
You'll either be a union man
Or a thug for J.H. Blair

Oh, workers can you stand it?
Oh, tell me how you can
Will you be a lousy scab
Or will you be a man?

Don't scab for the bosses
Don't listen to their lies
Us poor folks haven't got a chance
Unless we organize