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This is one of the disconnects that keeps progressive movements on the margins. My guess is that there are millions of people like the low-wage workers and the ex-marines who don't need to be enlightened about
injustice. But very few would have anything to do with current social change movements, and under most circumstances would keep their distance from the apparently educated and articulate elite that seem to determine the
anti-establishment agenda....Even if I discovered significant disagreement on issues I really care about, that should not impede my efforts to build alliances and work in coalitions with [working class poor] people. After all, my
disagreements with the engineers of [working class people]'s fate--the managers, bosses, legislators, and assorted other middle-class professionals--are
at least as significant, yet I am part of an anti-war movement that
never gives up courting them. There are possibly millions and millions of people whose trust of us will not climb along with the New York Times's, but in fact is probably inversely related. We don't need credibility from institutions that safeguard elite interests. We need credibility from the legions of people that have already given up on these institutions. Their numbers
are growing. Are we talking to them? More importantly, are we listening?
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No comment??
By Dberry44, Donna at Oct 29, 2010 12:08 PM
It is difficult to know what to do in a society in which the media have convinced the entire population, right down to the people who work at MacDonalds and woman the call centers, that we are, or ought to be, "middle class." The word has simply lost any real meaning.
Meanwhile--I speak as someone who was raised working class (skilled blue-collar Dad, Republican), went to college, got educated in the sixties, was vaguely left of center, had a job (OSHA inspector) which opened my eyes to class issues, developed severe chemical sensitivities, & ultimately homeschooled 2 daughters while, in part, at times, living on welfare (you'd never get away with that today). I will die poor, in a material sense, and I won't ever be able to afford to retire without a subsidy from my daughters or the state, but I am pretty happy.
Except, of course, for being horrified by the state of our country, the war, the advancing poverty, the banks. . . well, you know.
I would love to make a difference. But I am not comfortable as a member of the professional left (which barely exists in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, in any event) and I don't know any other place to connect. Most of the people I meet who are NOT members of the professional left, or the university crowd, simply have no interest in politics at any level, are terrified of losing, or failing to find, a job, and don't want to rock the boat. Maybe things have to get worse before people will take any risks. Dunno.
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