Cyberunions Podcast Episode 90: Identity politics lacks class

Dec 5, 2016By

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Intro (0:28)

* Swimming in the lake at 8 C/ 46 F
* The site will be moving and design changes to cyberunions.org and it will be more mobile friendly
* Steel plant in Germany and worker perspective with a more internationalist perspective
* Reminds of Capital Moves: The RCA story 
* Passing of Fidel and the end of an era
* Transition from Fidel to Trump… is it the end of Neoliberalism? Trump ‘Saving jobs in Indiana’

Main Topic (10:42)

* Threatening rise of fascism
* Giving out This Machine kills Fascists 
* The big fight of identity and class politics
* Liberals have defended identity politics and occused people bringing up class as white privilege
* SDP and Communist parties fought each other and the splits let the right come to power, we need to make sure that does not happen again
* Jacobin magazine historical map of the left in the US (PDF)
* Highlighting The Guardian newspaper covering identity politics well but not showing up to a strike
* Identity politics alone seems simple to solve but it has potential for large repercussions, LGBTQ rights comng about in the US at least is great but not everyone is on board with it where class issue is missed. 

(19:45)

* Capitalists don’t care about LGBTQ but they will exploit the split of the working class
* Gains in identity politics is more commonly found in the upper class
* In the film “Pride” Gay and Lesbians support the miners 
* Shows the struggle of breaking down divisions it will take us a long time but we will grow and become stronger
* Liberals stop blaming voters, instead blame the movements that failed
* We need to hold the line and defend identity politics but need to bring class into it
* The backlash is it left out half of the equation
* Socialist and revolutionary groups are seeing quite an uptick in membership and interest
* When did we ever have democracy
* Scotland shows great signs of positive changes in working class 
* The wierdness factor is still there, president is not held to conflict of interest laws
* In a bizarre state of mind of want to know what happens but we are not a game of Sims
* Spent life fighting Neoliberalism and now it is like oh shit neoliberalism might be better
* Capitalist will they oddly be in a place of ‘saving us’ in certain parts i.e. capitalist supporting LGBTQ
* Keep in mind there are splits in capitalism too
* A wait and see that we don’t want to wait and see
* The passing of Fidel thinking back on the legacy of Fidel

Tech (39:30)

* Rebuilding the commons, things have changed since we started,Read more…

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UNISON Scotland today urged the Scottish Government to prioritise protecting public services by axing its plans to first cut APD by 50%, then eventually abolish the tax.

In our response to the Scottish Government consultation on APD, closing today, weRead more…

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UNISON welcomes IPPR Scotland report ‘Scotland pay packets down 12% in real-terms since 2009’

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The IPPR report which is published today (23 March 2016) confirms that, pay in Scotland has fallen in real-terms by 12%, with private sector pay falling further than public sector pay. It also confirms that had pay risen in line with expectations, the Scottish economy would be £Read more…

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