RAMIN MAZAHERI—And so, in covering the brutal shooting of Jacob Blake it was hard not to see the enormous gap between the average concerns of the average American in an average American town and their political & media classes. It was very easy to see why alienation and cynicism towards politics among the US lower classes are so rampant: after an appalling police shooting, subsequent rebellions and the astounding scene of a teenager shooting protesters with a semi-automatic rifle, many in the US chattering classes stunningly insisted that the nation’s own president should not visit Kenosha and act like a public servant. It was a totally self-interested stance, and not one which many in Kenosha supported – people in Kenosha want governmental action, not governmental inaction. They probably wish the Secretary General of the United Nations would visit, too.
"ramin mazaheri"
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Reporting from the US: This is the ‘model system’ to follow?
13 minutes readRAMIN MAZAHERI—The situation in Kenosha is a microcosm of the United States in 2020 – tragedy on top of tragedy on top of tragedy: A Black man wantonly paralysed by cops, his three sons forced to watch, ethnic-based violence deteriorating a community already gutted by anti-patriotic neoliberal economics, shops frantically boarding up their windows after having been shuttered during a pandemic lockdown, a 17-year old shooting and killing two protesters – there is just a complete lack of security everywhere over here.
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RAMIN MAZAHERI—If Miranda knew any of those crucial leftist analyses he would have known that in order to maintain this fiction of a “classless” American society absolutely everything must be burned before it: What is identity politics but an endless assertion that absolutely anything – from race to religion to gender to sexual preference to party affiliation to ___ – is more important than class? Anything to not focus on class!
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RAMIN MAZAHERI—It is definitely not a racist term but entirely a class term: 1970s Blaxploitation movies were filled with Black-to-Black admonishments not to join “The Man” in his nefarious schemes of exploitation against all colors (excepting green). In many ways it was the equivalent of today’s “1%” – you were either for against “The Man” just like today you are either against the “1%” or aspire to join them. It’s not like The Man was ever routed, but what ever happened to “The Man”…?
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RAMIN MAZAHERI—Chicago is an interesting place in the US because it’s the 3rd-largest city but totally absent from US national coverage, which is dominated by NYC, DC and LA. However, to paraphrase the Rolling Stones: win over (understand) Chicago and you win over the bulk of the US. Chicago is the undisputed Qom of neoliberal thought, and yet also gave the world May Day. There’s no doubt that the average American peasant & worker lives/thinks/feels more like a Chicagoan than like any in that trio of rather incredibly resented US cities, so we can somewhat confidently extrapolate the current problems/solutions/rebellions/economic catastrophes seen in Chicago to the myriad of other cities both non-Americans and actual Americans never hear a word about in the national media, such as Cleveland, Tallahassee and Pittsburgh, to say nothing of Oskaloosa, the Quad Cities and anywhere in inland California.