Working Class Hero is Something to Be
Watched my 49ers go down to ignominious defeat yesterday but in my over-analytical way was more fascinated by the working class crowd at the local sports bar, the baseball caps and facial hair and solidarity built around A SPORTS TEAM. The interminable commercials focus on large breasts, sleek cars (one and the same?) and these ultra-violent computer war games who's existence , in my pop culture ignorance, I was totally unaware of. psycho- social explanations needed please. World-historical if possible, ha ha.
Also attended an anti-war rally in Missoula ,not exactly the same energy as a DC event but I don't want to disparage the heart and spirit of the hard core who stood in the cold drizzle. These are the ones we can count on for the long haul, and struggle is nothing if not a long haul.
Prof. Adolph Reed Jr. says it incredibly well in The Nation :...liberal's fear of seeming irresponsibly combative and their commitment to the primacy of corporate and investor -class interests will lead them to aid and abet the short-circuiting of whatever transformative potential this moment ( the aftermath of Katrina ) has. To para phrase historian Barbara Fields, race is a language through which American capitalism's class contradictions are commonly expressed. The only hope we have...lies in finding ways to build a broad movement of the vast majority of us who are not part of the investor class.
Check his article Class-ifying the Hurricane, Id link it if I had a friggin clue how to run this wierd machine. He is a member of the interim national council of the Labor Party and obviously a fellow traveller.
posted by troutsky @ 9:52 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Props on the observation in regards to football, and specifically commercials. As someone who watches very little television, it is fascinating to watch how companies try to get us to buy their product. My favorite are the sex ads that are selling something completely sexless, like tires.
Capitalism not at it's finest...
As for the quote from the professor... some of my EE profs are quite cryptic, but I truthfully can't follow this fellow. Care to dumb it down a bit for me? Greatly appreciated.
Oh, and it's really too bad about those confounded spammers. Guess my capitalism is a bit to blame again.
Reed is just critiqueing that liberal mind-set that allows them to support certain "reforms" that will not affect their own comfort level but does not allow them to oppose the structures most in need of change because they are invested in them. Amplifying my own criticism.There are obviously a number of relationships one can have with Power, from advesarial to outright identification with, but I seriously dislike the liberal acquiescense and cowardly compromise.They give the left a bad name.
As a younger person, what effect do you think this "gaming" has on individuals? Especially the violent ones.(games and individuals ) Ever try it?
I had to initiate this word identity thing to lose the spammers.
Also Wiser, I have posted a fairly long reply, dated 9/19, to your question about my proposals for what needs to be done.
Thanks for the clarification on the quote and I will get to the reply after this.
Oddly enough, I used to game quite frequently. Though I got along with most of the people I went to high school with, most of them were shallow people and I did not try to associate with them much. Instead, myself and a few of my friends would get together, drink a great deal of Mountain Dew and play Halo over a network. Good times... Truthfully, it was more of a social thing than anything else, it was cheaper to sit around and play games than to go to lame movies, etc.
Also, I took a class on violent video games at school. My teacher wrote her masters thesis on the effect of video games. My take is this: like any other thing we humans do, violent video games can effect us. This is especially true of younger, less formed minds.
That being said, we are ultimately responsible for our actions--of course--and free will has ultimate reign. Video games do not make people violent, at least in my humble estimation. Parents would be wise to limit the playing of video games, especially the violent ones by their young children.
The attraction, is simply a competive one, at least for me. It is a way for non-athletic kids to compete in ways they cannot do so otherwise. Believe me, as a student at an engineering school, there are some kids who can destroy me at any video game but couldn't beat me at a sport to save their lives. There is also something to be said for natural human violent tendencies.
Hope that helps.
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