There exist three categories of alternatives for those who are uncomfortable with church, and too impatient to wait for my crazy work/trade centers to start littering the earth. They include:

A.) Lifestyle and affinity groups (e.g., Sierra Club and other enviros, Consumers Union, the PIRGs, etc.).
B.) Affiliate membership in the AFL-CIO for those of us whose occupation does not admit of “real” unionization.
C.) Partisan and quasi-partisan structures such as local Democratic or Green Party chapters, or most any 527 (e.g., the post-Deaniacs).

Now, for what they’re worth, all of these are fine things with which to get involved. The Sierra Club has done fabulous work protecting our nation’s environment, and I for one am incredibly thankful for the work that they do (especially as I am about to spend a week in Yosemite). The Deaniacs, by whatever name they ended up giving themselves (I lost track) did yeoman’s labor in the last election, knocking on doors all over the place. And if Andy Stern and gang really do goad John Sweeney into getting off his fucking ass and start recruiting new members, well that’s all to the good.

So by all means, go out and join “old” organizations. They matter, they make a difference, and they need your help.

But here are two reasons why I don’t think that, in the end, they’ll do the trick:

1.) The weakness of affiliation versus interests and identity. Lifestyle and affinity groups are a relatively “weak” form of association. If I forget to send in my dues to the Sierra Club, or to TexPIRG, or to the local public radio station, I might feel guilty. I might even prevaricate when a friend asks me whether or not I belong. But no one’s going to come after me, and I’m not really going to lose anything when I forget to re-up my membership (yes, yes, this is all about selective benefits, and negative and positive sanctioning. Yes, yes, I finally admit the rat choice people might have some insights. So sue me). In the end, what does that mean?

It means that it’s really hard to care when the Consumers Union, or whoever, tells me to do something (like go vote). I suppose there are people for whom their primary identity is “environmentalist” (or “consumer,” or “public radio listener”) but come on – how many of those people do you know? Really? And do you want them running the country?

More to the point, it’s kind of hard to see how all those affinity groups link up in any meaningful way. Obviously this gets into some thorny political theory (don’t throw me in the briar patch, Mistuh Fox!), but the basic point is this – what on earth do the Sierra Club and the Consumers Union have in common at the end of the day? What’s the underlying nature of the interest or ideology that binds them together? Why should “consumer advocates” vote Democratic? We live in a two party system whether we like it or not, and the only likely alternative is not a European-style parliamentary democracy. We are more likely to see a one-party state (and it ain’t hard to guess which party that will be…) than we are to see the fractured diversity and consequent compromise and coalition-building of, say, the Netherlands.

Unfortunately, I think that affiliate membership in the AFL-CIO suffers from parallel drawbacks. If I’m not a “real” member of a union, why should I go to meetings, and what consequences will attend if I do or don’t keep up my membership?

The point? Join something that will keep you coming week after week, month after month. Join something that speaks to your core identity and interests. And if that happens to be the Sierra Club – fine. Just for heaven’s sake be ready with some hard-nosed thinking about how you can build coalitions with other groups.

2.) The weakness of “baseless” tertiary organizations. In CSP, Weber made the point that people form either status communities, or economic classes. That’s it, that’s all (to those of you who haven’t read it, churches are a kind of status community, and obviously unions are an economic class group).

Parties exist, to be sure, but they are vehicles used by status and class groups for political gain. Note the logic there – it is important, and something that a lot of people forget. Parties are logically secondary to status groups and economic classes. Without a “base” constituency whose interests they are supposed to represent, parties are “merely” empty shells (at best, they cease to be able to mobilize resources and hence to function organizationally. This is what happened to the Whigs. At worst, they become tools for authoritarian demagogues).

It is the genius of the current Republican Party to marry a major status group (Evangelical Christians) with a powerful economic class (corporate business) and to convince both groups that they can share common cause. It will be a particular stroke of genius to see if they can keep up the constant waving of the bloody shirts of gay marriage and abortion until Kingdom Come, all the while quietly re-making the national economy in the interests of Wal-Mart and Exxon.

The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has seriously undermined the economic interests of its main economic class support (the AFL-CIO, through such policies as NAFTA), and has failed to find meaningful new ways in which to nurture the grievances of its traditional status-group supporters (Blacks, other minority groups, and immigrants. For the record, they have also done a piss-poor job of advancing the interests of gays at the federal level, though they’ve done good work in some of the states. Watching John Kerry tell the nation that I am unworthy and second-class made me want to toss my cookies). Given that problem, the Dems are stuck trying to herd a bunch of cats consisting of:
- affinity groups with tenuous partisan connections and relatively weak mobilization potential (Sierra Club, Consumers Union, etc.);
- two broad economic classes that have little to do with each other (professionals and organized labor), one of which is rapidly declining in number, economic power, and mobilization potential;
- and a bunch of different status groups that either have little or nothing in common or possess generally opposed interests (Blacks, Hispanics, women, and gays).

Now, given the problem of the Democrats, the logical course of action is not, sadly, to all jump on the bandwagon “as Democrats.” The Democratic Party is merely a vehicle, and until and unless we decide who’s on board and where the fuck we’re going, it ain’t going to be any use cranking that sucker up.

Thus, by all means join the Greens, or your local Democratic Party club (the Harry S Truman club in Sacramento gave great dinners out at the Raddison when I was a kid, if memory serves), or even the Screaming Howard Fan Club. But be damn sure to have a good idea as to why you are doing so, and do not for a minute be under the illusion that’s the end of the problem.

Okay, that’s enough ranting for one day. And, that ends (for now) my installments in this series. The point? Go out and join something already. Oh – and if you are a straight white guy, please do let me know what you’ve joined. You guys are the ones I think the Democratic Party has to worry most about losing. So if there is some new group out there (it’s my dream that Balding Lefties Against State-Sponsored Terror, or BLASST, is busy recruiting even while I type), let me know so I can tell all my “politically unchurched” friends.

I have no idea what’s on the agenda for next week. Perhaps some amusing anecdotes about my adventures talking to liberal religious folks about this upcoming constitutional amendment. So stay tuned for another dose of tart, bitter, and always tangy bile.

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First of all, your stuff just isn’t all that funny.

I generally like the Daily Show. I think Jon Stewart is funny, and I like most of the bits by the rest of the staff.

Ms. Bee is another matter. I don’t know if it she or her staff of writers, but whatever it is comes across as just being bitter. I don’t mind making fun of people that are just creeps, or if they are simply crazy, but when you talk to people that are sincere, and are really trying to do what they think is a good idea, you come across as an asshole when you just berate them. Being clever is a good thing, but insulting people for no particular reason isn’t clever, it’s just bad writing. If you have an argument that is more sound and you can get off little zingers in the midst of the argument, then you are clever.

What you do is simply bully people because you have a camera.

Are you on a comedy show? If you are then get funny. If you aren’t, why don’t you get a job at Dateline. Their fake-ass investigative journalism is right up the alley for someone who writes stories like you do.

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The Southern Baptist Convention has finally decided to end its boycott of Disney over what it says is the company’s implicit approval of homosexual lifestyles.

The article in this case comes from the Orlando Sentinel. There are some pretty funny quotes, including:

“We believe for the boycott to be effective, it had to have a beginning and an ending,” he said. “We felt like it was time to end it.”

Right. It couldn’t have been at all that it was totally ineffective, not to mention idiotic.

However, throughout the boycott, no national financial analyst was able to say the effort had any impact on the company, and analysts were indifferent to Wednesday’s news. Some were unaware the boycott was still in effect.

“This is a nonevent for investors,” said Anthony Valencia

That’s just funny. They didn’t even know it was still in effect.

The following statement seems to make no sense to me at all.

“Most Southern Baptists feel we made our point, that Disney should not be judged by any higher standard than any other secular institution,” he said. “They’re no better or no worse than any other entertainment conglomerate. They have managed to undo the special good Walt Disney and his company have built with generations of American families.”

In case you were thinking that this was the beginning of a period of enlightenment for this particular branch of the church, there is other news.

Anti-gay resolutions are a staple of Southern Baptist Conventions, and one had been put forward before this year’s gathering calling on Baptists to withdraw their children from public schools.

Instead, the measure that passed Wednesday encourages parents to investigate their children’s public schools to determine whether they are too accepting of homosexuality.

“Homosexual activists and their allies are devoting substantial resources and using political power to promote the acceptance among schoolchildren of homosexuality as a morally legitimate lifestyle,” the resolution says.

Remember, the more things stay the same , the less they change.

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The International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE) has announced the 2005 Alka-Seltzer US Open of Competitive Eating, a landmark battle royale-style free for all of the nation’s top gurgitators. To be held on July 11-13 at the ESPN Zone in Las Vegas, NV, the competition is akin to a steel cage grudge match of competitive eating. This invitational elimination tournament will feature 32 of the world’s top eaters who will vie for $40,000 in prize money. The twenty eaters ranked highest by the IFOCE earn automatic bids while 12 additional eaters have been chosen by lottery.

The eaters earning automatic bids are:

1. Takeru Kobayashi (Nathan’s reigning Hot Dog king, and cow brain champ)
2. Sonya Thomas (American #1, holder of 25 world records)
3. Richard LeFevre (I call this guy “The Genius” of competitive eating)
4. Eric Booker (aka “Badlands,” strong on sweets, IFOCE hip-hop star)
5. Charles Hardy (”Hungry” Charles is the former American hot dog king)
6. Cookie Jarvis (Bulging perfection, world chicken fried steak champ)
7. Timothy Janus (Eater X, hailing from parts unknown, weight unknown)
8. Ron Koch
9. Joey Chestnut (Norcal’s very own deep-fried asparagus champ)
10. Joe LaRue (Sculpted 6′8″ wing ding champ)
11. Carlene LeFevre (The “Doyenne of Competitive Eating”)
12. Dale Boone (IFOCE Rookie of the Year in 2002)
13. Allen Goldstein (National Bologna champ)
14. Jim Reeves
15. Crazy Legs Conti (IFOCE Pancake champ)
16. Donald Lerman (”Moses” is the current butter and jalapeno champ)
17. Jed Donahue (I saw him at “The Passion of the Toast” in Venice Beach)
18. Bob Shoudt
19. Oleg Zhornitskiy (World mayonnaise champ: 8 pounds in 8 minutes)
20. Yellowcake Subich

The 12 wildcard eaters are:

1) Tim Holden
2) Levi Oliver
3) Cade Hardin
4) Ken Tittle
5) Stevie Amador
6) Scott Sayer
7) Pit Pendleton Frank Wach
9) Robert Brooks
10) Sam Vise
11) Wm. Hall Hunt
12) Ed Taboada

I shall make every effort to attend this event in order to file a full report. However, the competition will also be televised on ESPN from 8 PM to 9 PM on ESPN on July 28, 29 and 30, 2005.

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So, since the “I’m too sexy for my pom-pom” bill banning “lewd cheerleading” died in committee, to what do Texans turn to stave off the creeping agenda of lasciviousness and concupiscence?

Why, we turn to everybody’s favorite scapegoat: sissy boys with high voices.

That’s right: from now on, we here in Texas are taking a stand on the thing that _really_ matters, the line in the sand that marks off those who stand for moral righteousness and clear definitions of right and wrong from, well, anybody who disagrees with them.

We are taking a stand against boys singing girls’ parts in school choirs. Because we all know where _that_ leads.

I mean, besides some of the greatest art ever produced in the Western canon.

Ya know, ya just can’t make this shit up.

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If you are like me, you have been watching the current brouhaha over the disintegration of the American Federation of Labor with interest. The executive board of the Service Workers International have “ok-ed” a potential disaffiliation with the AFL-CIO. I will leave aside for the moment whether or not this is a good idea or a bad idea – to be frank, I am undecided on the matter – and concentrate on a related topic: why SEIU is so pissed.

At the heart of Andrew Stern’s critique is the following: the AFL-CIO is not recruiting new members – in a word, it is not doing the fundamental thing that unions are about, which is to say: organizing. I have to agree with him there. There is certainly more than one reason why union membership has fallen in this country – not least the unceasing assault on working people by big business and their political whores. But one reason why unions are shrinking is that the AFL-CIO, along with many of its constituent unions, has simply sat on its fat ass and collected rent for forty years. They have focused on short-term gains (e.g., staving off specific and particular pieces of legislation), and on organizational bullshit (yes, that would be Michels talking). And they have forgotten the mission.

For at the heart of any movement is a mission. The labor “movement” – inasmuch as it is a movement, and not a fucking sinecure for some corpulent golf-playing whities – has a mission. I am going to skip over the specifics of the mission for the moment, and concentrate on something more abstract: the nature of “mission” and what it entails. To have a mission means that you (either singular or plural) are a missionary. And if you are a missionary, you seek converts. All else – the building of an edifice to house one’s cause, the collection of offerings for the cause, even the super-edificial organizational structure that houses the means to the cause – is secondary to the fundamental thing: converting the masses.

Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, sayeth the hymn, a point that the Pentecostals (nor the Mormons, for that matter) have never forgotten. The point is analytic and practical as much as it is religious: if you want to build a just world (a New Jerusalem, the Working Man’s Utopia), you must always spread the message. Thus Andrew Stern’s critique and my own urgency. If Andy spends his time signing up new members, then I say damn right, motherfucka; stick it to the Man and bring on the Good News.

Now, one thing we know as sociologists is that organizations carry with them symbolic baggage, and in a related manner the form an organization takes has serious implications for how members deal with each other and how the organization deals with/is dealt with by the outside world.

As currently configured, the present-day labor union has serious problems on both ends of that equation. Think for a moment about the myriad objections to labor unions you’ve no doubt heard over the years: they’re corrupt, they’re undemocratic, they’re “unnecessary” (my personal fave), they’re “inefficient,” etc. Now, I could sit here and lay out why each of these objections is empirically false and a vicious lie, but that’s not really the point. The point is that a lot of people distrust the current form and the symbolic baggage it carries with it, and so are reluctant to join. Similarly with organizational form: corporations (and the government) HATE unions. Hate them like a Pentecostal hates a faggot – and hence do everything in their power to quash, denigrate, and nullify them.

In order to deal with the symbolic baggage and the organizational frame-problems, we therefore need to come up with a different form, and possibly not even call it a “union.” So, my suggestion?

Work/Trade community centers.

Now, I haven’t thought this through 100% (if I had, I would be out organizing one, instead of trying to put my disorganized thoughts in order). But the basic gist is this:

a.) some physical edifice, like a community center non-profit, where
b.) anyone can come and, for a modest membership fee, offer or bid on work, and where
c.) some portion of the price of the job would go into the center’s coffers, and where
d.) members elect the governing committee of the center, as well as elect representatives to some extra-local governing body, and where
e.) membership in any one center would be transferable to another location.

Like I said, I haven’t totally thought this one out, but I think it goes a fair piece toward solving some of the symbolic baggage and organizational frame problems bedeviling modern-day unions. It should appeal to the individualist bias while at the same time incorporating people into a collective democratic project; it’s not a “union” per se, especially inasmuch as it incorporates members from all sorts of professions and occupations; and it is face-to-face and democratically governed. Above all, it should teach people to think of themselves as actors (not subjects) enmeshed in economic webs of our own devising.*

For next week, some second-best alternatives for people who don’t care for God-talk and are skeptical (probably rightfully) of crazy Utopian schemes.

Update: it’s not just SEIU, but also UNITE, the Laborers, UFCW, and the Teamsters.

*There are surely some serious issues that my little idea either doesn’t address, or brings up on its own. But like any good salesman, I prefer not to dwell on the under-engineered parts of the model. However, the main problem, at least as I see it, has to do with an inherent limitation on applicability/appeal of this across the occupational spectrum. Which is to say, I suspect that this will really only work for (a) skilled and unskilled blue-collar workers (e.g., carpenters, day laborers, personal service-type folk such as masseurs) and (b) skilled and semi-skilled professionals – in other words, all of those persons whose basic “product” in the market involves some combination of skill, tools, and time. There would really be no particular reason for anyone involved in the retail trades – those whose skill is really sales – to join. Nor honest small businessmen (the original petit bourgeoisie, the kind of person who runs the corner liquor store, not the mythic bullshit peddled by the likes of BushCo, with his “want some wood?” line justifying tax cuts for the investor class). And certainly not big business owners, managers, and landlords/rentiers. In other words, this would really provide an organizational basis only for the current class coalition of the Democratic Party – and by implication would probably would not expand it to new groups. And that is over and above all the devilish details about how the damn centers would actually function.

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My partner said that yesterday was a “good Texas day.” Meaning a day when it was possible to enjoy living in Fort Worth. A day with a clear blue sky and horizons that never end. A day spent surrounded by good people: friends who are committed, thoughtful, caring, and funny. A day with cheap beer and good tamales and the kind of honest lack of pretension that simply doesn’t exist in the metropole. A day where I could come home to our house, that we bought, and sit on our porch and watch the sun go down through the pecan trees.

A day when we could almost forget that we hate living here, hate living in a state where we know, deep in our hearts (even when our brains manage to focus on the blue sky and the good friends and the cheap beer) that we live surrounded by thousands upon thousands of people who hate us. Literally hate us, and wish we would move someplace else.

Fort Worth Pride was this past Sunday, and boy howdee was it sweet. Twenty-five floats for a three block parade. We had two MCC churches (God love the gay Pentecostals), all four bars, two political organizations, the AIDS charities, the recreational clubs (Leather Knights, Bears, etc.), plus of course various and sundry Imperial Court divas (to the one in a rainbow dress I said “Oh, you must be Josephina and her amazing Technicolor dreamcoat!” Sadly she had no idea what I was talking about. Sigh. Donny Osmond, you are so over).

How else to describe it?

It was, in fact, what it was: all of gay Fort Worth gathered to say “we’re here!” – everyone from Bruce Wood to the last dizzy queen come up here from Benbrook to get hisself laid. True, the parade marchers were solidly middle-class (except perhaps the Court, which seems to draw from the lower end of the retail and service trades), while the crowd seemed to be much more working-class. In fact, a bunch of the folks on the sidewalks appeared to be residents (renters, doubtless) of the blasted, sun-baked blight of Near South Side Fort Worth (I don’t know if there’s a Sacto equivalent. Perhaps West Sac before the River Cats came). People were simply mad for beads.

Or perhaps it’s better to say that it was as if you took everything distinctive about Texas culture and spun it through the looking-glass. Take the wet t-shirt and wet boxers contest, for instance. So we’re at the post-parade “fair” in the “north 40” of Fort Worth’s “premier men’s cruise bar” the Corral. Which is to say, we’re in someone’s back yard, along with two dozen other vendors, hawking everything from voter registration (us) to jewelry, flavored condoms, and “bear meat on a stick” (i.e., kielbasa strategically dripping with mustard). It’s hot (low 90s, full sun, but with a breeze, thankfully). A man with a mullet is deejaying (“Play that Funky Music, White Boy” appeared to be a crowd favorite, along with Shania Twain’s “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under”). The cheap beer ($2.50 Heinekens) is flowing. And then the real fun begins.

Now let me say right up front that I had never before witnessed a wet t-shirt contest. I have never watched a “Girls Gone Wild” video. Nor have I even been to “LaBare” (the male strip club over in Arlington, shut down two years ago and replaced by “Chicas Locas”). Thus, I while I cannot say I was unprepared for what I witnessed, I can certainly say that I didn’t really comprehend just how raunchy this shit can get. From the jock-y looking “four-time past champion” in her sports bra, who (according to the MC) won because of her “big ol’ nipplies” to the gray-haired bisexual gimp, to the 5’ tall Hispanic girl who shouted into the mic “I love Tammy!” when she won, all of them gasped seductively when sprayed with the cold water from the hose. All of them bared their goodies for the crowd. And all of them – even the sexually self-assured bisexual – were quite well-endowed.

Then the men lined up. Oh, where to begin. There were 6 full sets of teeth for eight men (you think I’m joking? One quite buff cowboy in his early forties nearly lost his upper plate when the MC turned the hose on his basket). It was, thankfully, an ethnically diverse group, meaning we had one Hispanic twink, and one tall Buffalo Soldier. And with the mike-man pacing the edge of the stage with his hose, hollerin’ “we do not condone nudity here at the Corral!” it was like an old-timey tent revival. Oh, yes, preacher-man got in to the word, saying “Nosirree, no nudity is allowed at the Corral! That means if you get nekid it’s yo sweet ass the police will be haulin’ off to jail. And I ain’t going to be joining you in jail, boys! Well, exceptin’ maybe you, sweet stuff – I’ll join you in jail anytime.” And again, “No nudity is allowed here at the Corral. Nunh-unh, we do not condone nekidness at this establishment. Don’t be showin’ us yo goodies, boys!”

Until, of course, the inevitable happened, and one of the toothless cowboys yanked down his boxers. At which point the MC said “oh, yes! Sweet Jaysus, yes! That is exactly what we do NOT condone here at the Corral!”

Meanwhile, across town, a very different sort of revival was occurring. Gov. Perry – openly rumored to be sleeping with the (male) former Secretary of State – held a rally at the fundamentalist Calvary Cathedral to sign two bills: one requiring parental consent to abortion, and the other calling for a constitutional amendment on the definition of marriage. Yes, that’s right – Governor GoodHair, Closet-Case Perry went out of his way to sign a bill, in a church, fucking over the gays, in the one town in the state that happened to be having its Pride celebration that day.

Yes, yesterday was a “good Texas day.” A day with a bright blue sky and a limitless horizon. A day with cheap beer and good tamales. A day spent in the company of good friends. A day with no pretensions – at least not about “nipplies” and “good stuff.”

A day when I could almost forget about the hate.

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Thomas Frank, in a stirring but (let’s admit it) poorly-edited book, makes the argument that the Republicans are winning because the Democrats have stopped talking about class. I disagree with some of the specifics, but I’m basically on board with most of his argument. The main reason the working classes have turned against their long-time protector and have begun voting for their own exploitation and immiseration is because (a) what the fuck are the Democrats offering? I mean really? You want to talk health care, I’ll talk NAFTA. But also (b) the organizations that produce class consciousness are dying. And those two things, obviously, are connected. The grandees who run the show can count as well as any political consultant, and when they look at the fact that one of the main pillars of the party – the AFL-CIO – is withering away, well, they know how to keep the butter coming for their bread. So they’ve watered down the message, moved to the right, and adopted the vacuous rhetoric of “values.”

This has got to stop. Not only does pandering to the right make you – are you listening Hillarack Obaminton? – a pimp (OED def. of “pander,” just to refresh your memory: “to minister to the immoral urges or distasteful desires of another.” Those indulging this particular sin will wind up in the 8th circle of Hell, don’t forget). More to the point, it doesn’t work in the long term. It does nothing to build up the organizational base of the party, and indeed serves only to cement the evidence that America’s ruling class differs only in the most superficial ways. Is it any wonder the Dems are losing? They aren’t building their base, and they’re no longer actually Democrats.

Now, if we’re going to reverse this trend there are two logical ways to go about it: (a) say to the Republicans “you want class warfare, bring it on, bitch” and start really talking about class, or (b) build up an organizational infrastructure grounded in issues of money and collective interests. I would submit to you that (a) won’t work without concentrating first on (b).

Why? Because preaching to empty pews is an exercise in fatuous vanity. The DLC have a different fear, of course – that by talking about class we shall alienate either the fat and sassy middle classes or their corporate johns. The first is bullshit – just look at who subscribes to Mother Jones and the Utne Reader, for crying out loud – and the second bespeaks a base and foul toadying by the minions of Mammon. But the point is this: if we are to speak in a coherent way about class interests, we should be damn sure that people are prepared to receive the message.

Class consciousness is not a given – people need to learn how and why they are being exploited, and what they can do about it, just as Christians are taught every blessed Sunday how and why they must seek first the Kingdom of God, and what they must do to live the Word. If we expect the working classes to act “fur sich” then we better start at the most basic level by reminding them how and why they are working class “an sich.”

Thus, my suggestion that we need to reinvent the organizations responsible for teaching people to think in class terms. Build the base, and people will start responding to the message in thoughtful, responsible, democratic ways.

But this is actually a really fucking complicated problem.

Why? Because Americans hate talking about class. They fight it every step of the way. The literature on this is too copious to cite here, but basically the NYT has rehashed it well. If nothing else, most of us have believe wholeheartedly in the dominant mythology of the meritocratic American dream: work hard and you will be rewarded; the rich are that way because of hard work, talent, and entrepreneurial risk-taking; the poor are that way because they are lazy, stupid, have “bad values,” or some combination of all three; etc. In two words, most of us believe, in our heart of hearts, in the individualist bias. We believe in the sole power of individuals to determine the course of their lives, regardless of the larger structures of opportunity and stratification in which we live and move and have our being, and that therefore also “determine” the course of our lives.*

Now, aside from the fact that this constitutes a major error in the thinking of the vast majority of the population, this also has rather profound political effects. These effects are summed up best by the fact that a shitpotful of poor and working-class Americans willingly, cheerfully – fuck, even gleefully – voted back into office a man whose main economic proposals consisted of:
(a) destroying the only thing standing between old people and dog food, and
(b) stripping away what few pathetic barriers still exist in this country to prevent the inter-generational transfer of damn-near-titled estates.

So, how to fight this individualist bias? Thoughtfully, that’s how. I’ll start with what I’d love to see (work/trade community centers), and then lay out a second-best option (affiliate membership in existing unions).

*To me this seems like a secular version of the old free will/predestination argument. Obviously we exercise some degree of free will over our own destiny – and I for one cherish that freedom to pursue my own happiness. But to reject utterly the notion that we move within larger economic, social, and political structures that shape the choices available to us is simply to engage in a Randian fantasy. I find it truly bizarre that the theological heirs of the “hard-shell” Baptist tradition have so thoroughly repudiated their Calvinist roots. As a result, all talk of “class,” or structural reform to the economy, of the necessity for collective action and collective goods to ensure a decent society – is dismissed out of hand, as either heresy (“class warfare”) or empirical falsehood (“look at old Europe!”).

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