Jonathan, I think that your analysis leaves a lot of questions unanswered, but suppose we grant, arguendo, that this is a good account of how things are. Now what? Are we supposed to give up class analysis? If so, why? It seems that what you’ve offered here is just a claim that there are more classes than simply a monolithic managerial class and a monolithic working class, and that some classes of workers might seek to benefit at the expense of others?

(Or, to put it another way: if you aren’t offering a class analysis of the transit strike, what level of analysis are you offering? Individual?)

Generally speaking, the idea of an “aristocracy of labor,” and of the possibility that people at higher strata within the working class might try to benefit at the expense of people at lower strata — including by means of labor unions — is not exactly new. In fact it’s a standard part of many radical Left critiques of the AFL and related unions. (See Paul Buhle’s Taking Care of Business for one example.) It doesn’t demonstrate “the poverty of class analysis;” it just demonstrates the need for, well, richer class analysis.

Patrick: “Warrantless surveillance of American citizens is expressly forbidden by FISA and the Bush Administration is a threat to democracy.”

Just to test what counterfactuals are supported here, if warrantless surveillance of American citizens weren’t legally forbidden, would you be O.K. with Bush doing it?

Knapp: “The warrantless wiretaps are clearly and unambiguously illegal. I know it. You know it. Babbin and York knew it. And Bush knew it.”

This is very probably true. But if it weren’t illegal, do you think that would have made it O.K. for Bush to order warrantless domestic spying?

You do know that one of Morales’ major planks was opposition to the Drug War, and one of his major bases of support were Indian coca-leaf growers who were under systematic assault from the previous government, right?

I think the outcome in Bolivia may be more mixed than you give it credit for.

“There is no guarantee that any of these are Green-friendly, but anyone opposed to neoliberalism can’t be entirely bad.”

This principle is clearly false.

Of course gay-bashing by immigrants in Rotterdam constitutes a serious problem. But part of what I’m trying to suggest is that the “by immigrants” plays no important explanatory role in understanding or resisting it. If they had been brought up the same way but hadn’t moved to Holland (or been born into families that moved to Holland), I expect that they’d bash gay people wherever they did end up. Homophobia and male supremacy are what you ought to single out for analysis and criticism, not immigrant status.

Kennedy: Will you concede that many of Tookie’s supporters holding Schwarzenegger to this standard are not holding the former leader of the Crips to anything remotely like the same standard?

I wouldn’t know; I haven’t talked to many of them. I don’t think that an answer can be read off the public statements I’ve read or the ones you’ve pointed to.

Whether or not they’re holding Tookie Williams to the same standard as Arnold Schwarzenegger depends on (1) whether or not they believe that he’s guilty of murder at all, and (2) if they do think he’s guilty, whether or not they think that the murders he committed were as bad or worse than Schwarzenegger’s participation in having him killed.

As for (1), some people think that he’s innocent, at least of the murders that he was slaughtered for; and that belief may or may not be dishonest — I wouldn’t know — but if it is, the dishonesty doesn’t have anything in particular to do with comparative judgments with Schwarzenegger. If he is innocent, then there just isn’t any question of holding people to the same standard at all, since they don’t believe that they both did the same thing.

As for (2), how would I know? I haven’t seen any statements comparing the two at all, or resting on an implied comparison between Williams and Scharzenegger. You might think it’s implied if they (a) believe Williams is a mass-murderer, but (b) try to portray him as a good person nevertheless, while not extending the same charity, or indulgence, towards Schwarzenegger. But it seems obvious to me that how you take someone’s past violence to bear on their character depends a lot on whether it was committed a quarter century ago or less than a week ago. Again, maybe people who think that Williams genuinely repented of his past are fooling themselves — again, I wouldn’t know — but again, it’s unclear what the dishonesty in question would have to do with Schwarzenegger, who had a man killed not a week ago and to all appearances sticks by his sincerely-felt endorsement of it.

I’m sure there are plenty of people who opposed killing Tookie Williams who were being dishonest — that’s true of most political movements and there are specific facts about the conditions under which campaigns against a particular death sentence are conducted that encourage dishonest arguments (it’s a person’s life at stake, the time is limited, the arguments most likely to succeed are arguments against the verdict rather than the sentence, etc. etc. etc.). That sucks, and I don’t like it or engage in it, but it’s not clear that the phenomenon has to do with differing standards for outrage.

Kennedy: Rad’s running interference for people who don’t mean what he means. Schwarzenegger was called a cold blooded killer to condemn him, but there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with cold blooded killing as Rad lays it out. A man may justly kill even if his blood isn’t hot. No, they were saying that Schwarzenngger was doing as bad or worese than what Tookie was convicted of. That’s not the case.

When you say “No, they were saying that Schwarzenngger was doing as bad or [worse] than what Tookie was convicted of. That’s not the case,” do you mean to complain that it’s in fact not the case and that Williams’s supporters were wrong to believe otherwise, or that they don’t even believe that it’s the case, and so were being inconsistent or dishonest to imply it? If it’s the former, then why do you suggest they’re not holding both men to the same standard, instead of just saying that their standards are wrong? If it’s the latter, what grounds do you have for saying that? If it’s that you think that death sentences for convicted murderers aren’t as bad as freelance murders of the innocent, then again, it’s unclear why the issue is supposed to be dishonesty rather than error. If it’s that they think that death sentences for convicted murderers aren’t as bad as freelance murders of the innocent, why would that death penalty opponents believe that?

That’s connected with my reasons for “running interference” through a narrowly literalistic reading of the words involved. I think that bullshitting through word-choice is one of the ways that people avoid real arguments about matters of life and death, particularly when they’re connected with the State, and I’d like to put a stop to it. I also think that in this particular case it conceals where the real argument lies. Greenwald explicitly claims, and you seem to want to suggest (maybe you don’t; if so, my bad) that you ought to object to the way that Tookie’s supporters are carrying on about Schwarzenegger and the hangman State broadly whether or not you believe that the death penalty is justified, because it involves dishonesty or hypocrisy. I think that the moral status of the death penalty as applied to Williams is the only genuine issue in the debate, but that this is concealed by using language that covers over what a death sentence is. The actual complaint is that Schwarzenegger is being held to standards that Greenwald disagrees with, not that he’s being held to a different standard from Tookie Williams, or to a different standard from Iran or China or whatever other slaughterhouse we’re supposed to be denouncing first thing this morning. The shift in language from “cold-blooded killing” to “the execution of the unquestionably guilty mass murderer and violent gang founder Tookie Williams — after a jury trial and multiple judicial appeals” makes it easier to talk in a way that effectively presupposes that killing Williams wasn’t a serious offense that anyone ought to care about, and so helps license the classic “And what about your blacks in the South?” feint.

Nobody is “throwing” North Africans or Turks into Europe. They are choosing to move there because they have reasons (usually political and/or economic ones) for wanting to leave their old country. Need it be mentioned that the kind of immigration restriction that Fortuyn ardendly supported would require overriding those reasons, at bayonet point, and placing the decision in the hands of State bureaucrats?

Do you think that if more homophobic and patriarchal people were to stay in North Africa or Turkey that would make it better for gay people and women? What about gay people and women in North Africa and Turkey?

Anna: I just meant that I believe that lots of the racists are working class (not that they’re the only or whole working class). They might be white racist or arab racist (or sexists, or subculturists), but the result is the same – spontaneous action results in a frenzied attack at the nearest scapegoat (white, wife, arab, chinese, child, immigrant or local) rather than at the true oppressor.

That’s what I meant by saying “when the working class errupts, it is against itself”. Sections of the class bash other sections, and it sucks.

That’s fine, and it’s a point well taken, but I think there’s still an important point here, and the question isn’t purely one of wording. Part of what I want to know is how the way that the “working class” is talked about affects our idea of what “vanguardists” are and what sort of “intervention” they need to provide.

In particular, it’s not like “the working class” tout court needs a bunch of revolutionary specialists to come in and tell them what racism is. Muslim working class folks who are getting bashed know what it is, know who is truly doing the oppressing (in this particular case), and have the bruises to prove it.

And when white working class folks participate in, or enable, violent racism, it seems to me like the people most qualified to confront them on it and show them that what they are doing is wrong, are the folks who have been bashed; in this case Muslims organizing and agitating for their own safety and dignity. Do they count as “vanguardists” and does this count as “intervention” in the uprising of the working class? If so, I don’t have a problem with it, but I think long historical experience should tell us how rarely self-proclaimed vanguards of the working class operate in that way, and how very dangerous this kind of language can be, because it tends to give the picture of the working masses, on the one side and the vanguardists on the other, with the vanguardists herding the workers in the politically correct direction, rather than the picture of folks within the working class taking the initiative to confront each other and fight with each other and hopefully learn from each other and eventually work together with each other. (In point of fact, given the number of “interventions” by “vanguardists” that had nothing to do with workers and everything to do with murderous power, I wonder whether the language of the Vanguard is helpful at all.)

Dave: [The death penalty’s] real basis is to enforce just retribution against the criminal.

Most people who oppose the death penalty as a matter of principle deny that violent retribution can be just. Most people who don’t oppose the death penalty in principle but do oppose this or that instance in fact, deny that violent retribution against the condemned would be just in that particular case (for whatever reason).

Of course, you’re free to disagree with them and give reasons for your disagreement, but thus far you’ve only begged the question against them in the course of your description.

Dave: Before the strong state was established the job of executing those who allegedly deserved it was in the hands of the decedent’s family or clan. As mankind has become progressively civilized the state took over this function and rationalized and democratized it, which has resulted in increased justice and eliminated the problem of the killer’s family then seeking reciprocal vengeance and the resulting destructive vendettas. For the life of me I don’t see how this is so horrible.

Because if you think that the death penalty is unjust, increased bureaucratic rationality as applied to injustice is not something to be cheered. Again, you may not think that the death penalty is unjust, but since you’ve given no argument for that position, you can hardly expect this to convince those who don’t already view deliberate, non-defensive killing of prisoners as permissible.

Dave: Sure it is an imperfect procedure, but what system is perfect.

These happen to be people’s lives that you are fucking talking about. Even if you think that killing people who pose no further credible threat is, in principle, permissible, how many innocent lives do you consider acceptable losses for the sake of the “system”?

Dave: You will hear no comparable outcry when child killer John Gacy or similar persons are executed.

It’s true that people often find some of the condemned more sympathetic than others, and those who elicit more sympathy tend to get more people trying to defend their lives. That’s too bad, but so what? Some people don’t turn out for unsympathetic victims because they’re unprincipled; other people because they oppose the death penalty only in some specific cases but not in others; others because they genuinely oppose the death penalty in all cases but have only so much time and energy to spend and choose to spend it on some cases but not others. (And none of this has anything to do with whether or not the death penalty is in fact justified, of course.)

Dave: The public wants it. This is a democracy.

Oh, well. If it’s popular that must mean that it’s alright.

Thanks for clearing that one up.