At The Music Blog - A Video by Ralph Nader and Patti Smith

Posted by Richard S. on February 16, 2008

Yes, Ralph Nader and Patti Smith, together. (Speaking of all those influences going back to the mid ’70s…) I talk more about it there too.

This entry was posted on February 16, 2008 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “At The Music Blog - A Video by Ralph Nader and Patti Smith”

Revolution Says:
February 16, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I generally like your blog, but I have to question your support for Nader. Sure, he’s not as bad as some but he’s no friend of the working class. Have a check of this website:
http://www.realchange.org/nader.htm
Richard S. Says:
February 16, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Hi. Yes, I’ve seen all this before, and a couple of points come to my mind:

First of all, re. personal criticisms regarding his authoritarianism, etc., I have seen the same authoritarian qualities in many political leaders, including among anarchists (in these “leaderless” organizations that prove to be anything but). Personally, in the long run, i.e., ideally, I don’t think we should focus on leaders or count on leaders to save us. We should be focusing our attention on creating radical democracy. But if there is a place to do that and a way for that to really happen in the present time and place, I just don’t see it. Even if we could bring the anti-authoritarian movement(s) to the same level of resurgence that we saw, say, during the “anti-globalization” movement at the turn of the millennium, there would still be enormous obstacles to overcome in terms of discouraging the takeover by authoritarians with agendas and giant egos, etc. So, I think we need to have an enormous amount of change in the way people are socialized at a very deep level for this tendency not to exist. Thus, you can point to any group anywhere on the left and find its own people at least as worthy of criticism, for the same reason, as Ralph Nader.

Regarding criticisms of the labor policies in Ralph Nader’s organization… This is also pretty typical of most nonprofit groups. This is a big problem and I’m not excusing it. But at the same time, if we’re going to play in this political game at all (and I don’t blame people who will choose to abstain from doing so), then we’re going to find this sort of problem everywhere.

I’m not calling upon people to look upon Ralph Nader as the flawless leader who’s going to save us all. I’m looking at this in the context of an election year and the fact that Ralph Nader and his organization bring attention to issues that the major candidates won’t approach, and they advocate for reforms that the major parties won’t dare go near. If there were some other forum through which these political ideas could get out right now to the same degree, and if there were some better way to call attention to the reasons why not to support these major parties, I’d be all for that. But there isn’t. There is no radical or socialist movement right now that is bringing any kind of attention to these issues. And what’s even more disturbing is that there are so many people who claim to be radical or progressive who are flocking to the campaign of Barack Obama. I think Obama’s campaign might be the most successful that I have seen so far in terms of co-opting a mass desire for reform or even radical change into a “movement” that’s ultimately going to be a great comfort to the ruling class. But, of course, that desire for radical change is very vague, or Obama wouldn’t be able to co-opt it so well. Most people in the U.S. lack political information, and there are very few places where they can get that information, especially in a presidential election year, outside of an election campaign.

I also think that Ralph Nader does work hard to get the truth out about a large list of issues. That’s an effort that should be supported, regardless of what we might think of him personally.

And let’s face it, no one is expecting him to be elected a leader anyway. I’m not advocating his candidacy in order to bring great political power to Ralph Nader. That’s not going to happen. I’m supporting his candidacy as the best and most visible opposition in this election year. Even if he gets only five percent of the vote, he will probably be getting more support than anyone else in this election who voices any real opposition to the same old crap.

Now, in the context of the music blog… I felt compelled to voice some support to the Nader campaign because the music blogs out there have been bombarding us relentlessly with their support for Obama. I have been greatly disappointed by other music bloggers who seemed to have some kind of genuine radical focus who have flocked to Obama. I’ve also been disappointed by hip-hop artists who seemed to have some sort of revolutionary focus in their lyrics in the past who are throwing their support behind Obama. (Probably because, unfortunately, race still plays a huge part in the “politics” of this country.)

So, I see support of Nader, especially in his collaboration with Patti Smith, as a way of countering that. Considering all the music personalities who are throwing their support behind Obama - and, for that matter, all the others who threw their support behind Kerry last time around(!), I give a lot of credit to Patti for sticking with Nader. In the pop/rock/rap music world of fake rebellion, Patti Smith has shown a lot of real consistency and integrity, and her support of Nader is a manifestation of that.

So, anyway, hope that clarifies a few things regarding my perspective…
al-Ibadani Says:
February 17, 2008 at 6:44 pm
RIchard, Richard, Richard. You so personify arnarchoid thinking in what you say. The hope is NOT in so-called anti-authoritarian movements, or in bringing certain “issues” to the public’s attention, or in building a radical “movement” Hope is in the class struggle ALONE.

If the class struggle intensifies, is there any doubt that workers will increasingly be politicized? If the class struggle intensifies won’t we have more and more questioning of the entire socio-political arrangement? If the class struggle intensifies, won’t workers themselves organize the structures and organizations you seem to hunger for?
Richard S. Says:
February 18, 2008 at 1:24 am
al-Ibadani, I think you should repeat my name one more time just to ensure the proper level of condescension.

Anyway, in answer to your questions… What exactly do you mean by “If the class struggle intensifies”? If the class struggle is defined as the day-to-day struggles that working people must go through just to survive in the face of increased immiseration, then the answers would have to be, no, no, and no. There is no question that working people will have to struggle more during both the short-term recession and the long-term decay (I already know that very well first hand); but there is no guarantee that working people will turn their daily struggles into a more focused class struggle or even have the awareness or consciousness to do so. In fact, all the indications are that this is quite unlikely for the time being.

So, how do the people become more informed, especially in such a way as to turn their/our daily struggle into the focused class struggle that we are talking about? I think that there are many ways that people might become more informed, and the electoral forum is one of them, provided that there is anyone being heard in that forum who is not simply a paid mouthpiece of the ruling class.

A Nader campaign or some other such oppositional campaign will do some service in terms of giving people information on how they are being screwed over by the main representatives of the ruling class. Even if it doesn’t get them to start crying out for revolution, it might give them some information on healthcare, social welfare, globalization of labor and wages, etc. (not being given by the major-party candidates) that will cause them to take a harder look at certain matters (or that at least might have a slight chance of doing so).

A mass movement would, of course, be more effective in these terms. And no, I don’t think it has to be specifically a workers’ movement, especially not one strictly coming from struggles in the official workplace, although I do agree that the experience and conditions of workers vs. capital should be central to any successful oppositional movement, and that class has been sorely neglected in oppositional movements of the past three-plus decades here in the U.S. and (to a lesser degree) other “advanced” nations, very much to our own detriment. But once we start dismissing mass movements in general if they are supposedly not coming out of “class struggle” (a major assumption, by the way, that might also depend on a very limited definition of “class struggle”), then we start limiting the potentials quite a bit.

Meanwhile, a campaign such as Barack Obama’s can only hinder class struggle or more general struggle against the system because of the way it serves to weaken class resentment and political antagonism by creating false hopes through vague illusions about “change,” etc. (not to mention its explicit emphasis on cooperation between the poor and the wealthy). As I said, this has been a very successful campaign in the service of co-optation of dissatisfaction, and we can only hope that it doesn’t succeed further at this point.

I think it’s curious that you say I’m a typical “anarchoid” for talking about mass movements and bringing attention to issues through political means, etc., when this insistence on relying on the “class struggle alone,” apart from official politics and political parties, is very reminiscent of orthodox anarchosyndicalism (which I believe at this point is very flawed). (And, yes, I am aware that there is a big difference between strict anarchosyndicalism and advocating for workers’ councils and the like, as we are made well aware by that certain political organization that we both like. However, I do think that talking about some “class struggle” solving problems on its own while seeming to dismiss talk of political parties or mass movements somewhat echoes the self-contradictory anti-political politics of anarchoysyndicalism. Tyring to articulate this problem, not so easily - hope this makes some sense…

Moreover, I would welcome reforms that decrease immiseration of working people, as I don’t think that increased immiseration automatically increases focused class struggle and movement toward a revolutionary position. Actually, a lot of history suggests the opposite, and current events in impoverished nations certainly show us that events might not at all take such a turn.

But here we get into abstractions that have little to do with what most working people are presently thinking or focusing on. (Who exactly discusses and advocates these abstract Marxian perspectives anyway? Usually it’s the academics who are far better off than most of the working class whom they are constantly talking about - especially the people who must really struggle day to day.)

Some anarchists might actually argue with me that it is somehow vanguardist to talk about the need for an increase in class consciousness. But what else can we call this kind of awareness that is necessary before people even start to think about class struggle in a focused way?

This awareness is not going to build automatically, and I don’t believe that it is going to be built strictly from and within workers’ organizations as they presently exist. (Any look at trade unions and the experience of the huge 11 percent or so of the officially known work force who comprise these unions’ membership will tell you as much.)

So, I’ll welcome all kinds of movements and political sources that might help the situation (and as I’ve always said, I’m all for the Chomskian notion of “expanding the floor of the cage”)… I don’t think short-term reforms are ultimately sufficient and I am all for the end of capitalism, plus I do wonder, like many people, how much reform can genuinely be accomplished now, considering the system’s deteriorated state. But on the other hand, I am not going to oppose reforms or genuinely reformist movements out of fear that they won’t mesh with some old blueprint for revolution, especially when the supposed revolutionary groups are presently proving themselves to be deficient in terms of communicating or appealing to more than a tiny number of people (who will then spend all their time vehemently arguing about minor differences in theory amongst themselves).
al-Ibadani Says:
February 19, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Actually RIchard (No name repitition this time) the fact that an upturn in the class struggle isn’t guaranteed doesn’t negate the fact that our hopes lie solely in such an upturn. That was the crux of my argument. I thought we agreed on that, until I read about how you welcome “all kinds of movements” and then I began to wonder how much agreement there actually is between us.

You are aware of my positions and my politics (which for now is restricted to doing some translations for the ICC) but I’ll try to put a few dents in your logic.

Lets begin with some basic definitions. The class struggle is not ” the day-to-day struggles that working people must go through just to survive in the face of increased immiseration.” Can we at least agree that the term refers to collective struggles. That being said, there’s no reason for so much pessimism on your part in that regard. There are glimmers of hope and indications that workers (think globally) are returning to collective struggle, albeit slowly.

My other point is that you were getting things backwards, in ways that remind me of Gramsci. Collective struggle happens as the reaction to certain attacks on workers’ living standards, and class consciousness –especially the most elementary forms of it, such as a basic awareness of belonging to a class– is often a consequence of struggle, not a prerequisite for it. Think historically as well as globally. There was class struggle before there was a Marx or a Proudhon. I would insist that on the contrary it is the class struggle that helped produce the ideas of these men. The massive strikes last year in Egypt and Bangladesh (impoverished to say the least) didn’t require a Nader campaign. My point is that the class struggle can greatly increase this awareness, it can help increase the ranks of militant workers, and can help in improving revolutionary theory. But then you’ve heard this before.

You write about an electoral campaign as a means to inform the working class about issues not brought up by bourgeois parties. Democratic ideology is based on the idea of “the people” ruling themselves. It denies the hard reality of class antagonisms. History has shown that one way the bourgeoisie has been able to avoid a decisive overthrow of capitalism is with elections. Electoral politics reinforce democratic ideology, i.e they negate class antagonisms. But then you’ve heard this before.

Even if I were to agree with you about a campaign informing people, and not reinforcing one of the strongest bulwarks of bourgeois rule, why Nader. IT still seems to me like some calculation on your part weighing media exposure and the radicalness of the message. Otherwise why not support the Mike Gravel campaign. Why not the SEP/WSWS? My point is that a Barack Obama campaign, much respected by the corporate media, is not what hinders class struggle, but the democratic mystification itself, a mystification reinfroced by the participation of the so-called radicals (Nader barely qualifies as one). I’m sure you’ve heard this all before.

You also write about “abstract” Marxist ideas. I’m sure you can articulate many of these ideas, and the last time I checked, you are not some comfortable college professor. Nor are most of the members and sympathizers of the ICC and the IBRP, nor were most of the CNT or the KAPD. Workers like you and I are articulating these “abstract” concepts. The fact that our numbers are tiny are due to many factors, including the sorry state of the class struggle tooday, and the weight of the Stalinist counter-revolution (the belief that Marxism = Stalinism. I would also like to point out that the seemingly ceaseless debates amongst us are the very lifeblood of the revolutionary movement, from Marx vs Bakunin to Luxemburg vs Lenin. It is annoying but necessary. But you’ve heard that too.

Many of the anarchoids I run into are all into anti-globalization and environmentalism etc. I wish you were more like the classic anarcho-syndicalists who are at least focused the class struggle.

On the points you made about reforms, I think some temporary reforms can be won, and some attacks on our living standards can be temporarily countered. But the tendency is towards deteriorating conditions for workers everywhere as well as increasing imperialist tensions. And these tendencies are unavoidable unless… well you’ve heard that ad nauseam.

Lastly I’m almost saddened to hear you talk about mass movements. Such as? The brown shirts? The intifada? Or maybe the anti-globalism crowd. I don’t understand quite frankly why you can’t see the danger of the working class being drowned and diluted in the mass movements. But it’s all stuff you’ve heard before.

I just spent 30 minutes writing to you about shit you’ve heard already. Maybe it was worth it.
Richard S. Says:
February 20, 2008 at 2:05 am
al-Ibadani,

Despite your occasionally insulting or condescending tone, it is always a pleasure to debate with anyone who thinks about these matters as thoroughly and rationally as you do, and I appreciate your devoting half an hour to your latest comments. Now I’ll probably do something close to the same…

I think I need to clarify a few things:

First of all, when I say “all kinds of movements,” that is a casual phrase that does not literally mean “all movements.” It means that I will welcome many kinds of movements if they have a constructive purpose and, especially, if they help to improve the condition of people who are subject to oppression and exploitation by the ruling class.

I have always given class struggle top priority, sometimes with consequences if I dealt with some of the “anarchoids” out there who would not, who would insist that many different kinds of struggle and many different kinds of “isms” should be given equal weight. I don’t agree with that perspective.

However, I do think many different kinds of oppositional movements will contribute to consciousness and the people’s self-empowerment, which are good things.

I don’t consider, say, environmentalism to be a focus that is exclusive of the class struggle. In many ways, as you must surely know, envronmentalism is tied in directly with class struggle. At the most simplistic level, think about whose neighborhoods and villages are most likely to be polluted or contaminated, etc. At a higher level, think about how capital’s need to constantly increase production is tied in with environmental destruction. (If I’m not mistaken, the ICC has also written extensively about this.) Moreover, there have been many thinkers in recent years who have tied environmentalism in quite well with Marxism. One of my own longtime favorites would be Andre Gorz (although I know that many of his more recent works seem to be less Marxist and more reformist to many people). So, I just don’t see the necessity of excluding people who are very concerned with environmentalism in order to focus on those interested in class struggle. I never supported the big “red-green” divide that seems to be so pervasive in the thoughts of many Marxists as well as anarchists; I think it oversimplifies a lot.

I do think that movements such as the anti-globalization movement have helped to bring a good number of people to thinking about class struggle and left communist ideas. Especially because of the resurgence of anti-capitalist thinking that this movement brought about, it inspired a lot of people to think about council communism or anarchosyndicalism. Because of its anti-authoritarian emphasis, it also greatly increased the emphasis on non-authoriarian Marxism, helping to change the prevailing trends in Marxism from Stalinism and Trotskyism to left communism and libertarian Marxism. (I have gathered that you probably think “anti-authoritarian” or “libertarian Marxism” is a contradiction in terms, but that is something that we will always disagree about to some extent.) And because of its encouragement of participation by everyone in direct actions and civil disobedience (as well as an emphasis on radically democratic participation in the planning, at least in theory if not always in actuality), I think it helped to give a number of people some sense of empowerment.

Additionally, contrary to the ideas propagated by many people from both left and right to belittle and slander this movement, it did not consist merely of people running out into the streets to fight police. There were extensive educational discusssons (i.e., mutually educational, not just an appointed teacher dispensing information to students) as well as many instances where very practical knowledge and information was shared, to the benefit of all. And that is, I think, definitely a way for consciousness to be increased.

Of course, the movement was very flawed and once the going got a little tougher, it imploded, which I at least fully expected. And I was always very aggravated by the high emphasis within these groups on shallow identity politics versus a deeper understanding of hierarchical and, especially, class relationships. But I think that this was one example of a movement that should not be dismissed as you and, actually, some members (if not many members) of the ICC are prone to do.

Regarding your statement:

“Collective struggle happens as the reaction to certain attacks on workers’ living standards, and class consciousness –especially the most elementary forms of it, such as a basic awareness of belonging to a class – is often a consequence of struggle, not a prerequisite for it.”

I think the relationship works back and forth, without a single cause and effect. Even you must be aware that it is not always the case that awareness is a consequence of struggle, or you would not have used the word “often.” (Unless I am reading too much into this. I am aware that we all are limited in time and cannot choose every word as precisely as we would like, especially in a comments section of a blog.) I think, if I’m not mistaken, that this is part of the nature of dialectical development… You cannot say it is an absolute fact the struggle is the cause and consciousness the effect. The struggle may cause consciousness but it may also lack the focus to create greater consciousness unless consciousness is built up first.

Regarding the subject of elections… I completely agree, as I always say,that the most important work has to be done outside of elections and that you certainly cannot create a revolution through voting. However, the elections are here and many people are looking to the elections as their only source of political information, something that we might as well try to take advantage of, especially when there isn’t any other visible activity going on. (You say that there are glimmers of hope if I “think globally” - ah, but I am stuck right here in the U.S., where it seems our options are quite limited right now.)

Your attitude about elections is very much like that of many anarchists (or anarchoids?) whom I’ve dealt with. They will act as though they are doing something positive and constructive by staying home on election day and criticizing all the people who vote. But what are they doing ultimately? They are spending their time collectively congratulating themsevles by writing notes on each other’s Web sites.

As I’ve always said, if there ever is a conscious, focused and visible boycott of the polls - one that makes it clear in a very public way why the people are deliberately abstaining from voting and one which can inspire more and more people to hop on board - then I will participate. But no one has effectively done that, nor do I see much of a chance of that happening. And without that kind of activity, this talk about the “mystification” caused by elections (or, in the anarchists’ case, the simple ideological opposition to elections) seems kind of pointless.

You say that my supporting Nader is a “calculation…weighing media exposure and the radicalness of the message.” Well, yes, to some extent. I never was for the idea of making media exposure the object of demonstrations or (obviously misnamed) “direct actions,” but the elections are by nature a media circus, so when we talk about elections, why not take that exposure into account? And I do not see myself as compromising anything by supporting Nader’s stand on the various issues that he focuses on versus that of the major candidates. (I don’t say that supporting Nader is going to bring a solution to all our biggest problems; I don’t regard him as our man on the white horse, etc.)

Why don’t I support the SEP instead? Well, yes, their lack of ability to take their candidates anywhere near even the level of Nader is one reason. But the SEP are more or less Trotsky worshippers, which I find at least as disagreeable as Nader’s limited radicalism and avoidance of socialism. I think the SEP have a superb news site (except for those thankfully very occasional times when it exposes us to historical discussions around Saint Trotsky) and I will always be happy to recommend them for their news coverage as well as their perspectives on capitalism, which I basically share. (I also might be more supportive of them in other places - they seem to have an interesting poisition in Sri Lanka, for example; I would like to find out more about that.)

I also would not be adverse to going to a political meeting of the SEP, especially if it means strategizing in some way to expose the business parties and the ruling class. (If they actually have some meetings in Long Island City, which I believe is where they’ve held them in the past, I will try my best to go, since that is walking distance for me now.)

I did agree, myself, to help the ICC, with proofreading and editorial work, but I have not heard back from the person who I spoke to about this. I get the impression that I might not be as committed to their particular program, and as involved in it, as they would like me to be, as I seemed to be (more so) two or three years ago. But though I might not always share their specific perspective, I support them enough, especially in their critique of capitalism, to want to help them in their efforts at least someitme. And I’m glad you’re doing the same.

And at this point, I guess I have spent a huge amount of time and space on my response to your response, so I’ll “sign off” for now…

« Steve Gerber RIP

Lots of “Action” in the Comments Section »

Commie Curmudgeon

Blogroll

Archives

At The Music Blog - A Video by Ralph Nader and Patti Smith

6 Responses to “At The Music Blog - A Video by Ralph Nader and Patti Smith”

Leave a Reply