"First, I stand by my view that, as Mr. Wise paraphrases it, “a choice between Obama and McCain is so pathetic as to render democracy as a concept pretty much superfluous.” As John MacArthur, president and publisher of Harper’s magazine points out, it takes $300 million dollars to run for president. The way candidates get $300 million dollars is through corporate donations. For example, as MacArthur states here: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/25/rick_macarthur_you_cant_be_preside... , Obama’s biggest contributors include Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, National Amsuements, Inc. which is the parent company of Viacom and CBS, Citigroup and, Goldman Sachs which is “his number one banking contributor.” When the Random House Unabridged Dictionary tells me here: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/democracy that democracy is “government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system” and “the common people with respect to their political power” and then tells me that because I can pick which one of the two pre-corporate-selected candidates I choose to vote for I live in a democracy, then I do say that “democracy as a concept is pretty much superfluous” – unless we are defining Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sach’s CEO’s as “the common people.” In other words, our current political system involves a great deal of fascistic corporatism."

So, by your argument, Clinton and Bush could have had no difference, nor Clinton and Dole, because, after all, they were all backed by major corporate candidates too, right?

Paul Street uses "proto-fascism" to define our current state of affairs. I like it. Because we do NOT have a fascist political system: There ARE openings for minorities, women and non-corporate speakers, no matter how small, and more importantly there still are civil rights. There is NOT an active backlash against racial minorities led by the state. To equate the present state of American politics, no matter how bad or repugnant, with Mussolini, Hirohito or Hitler is really repugnant and totally unnecessary.

Nobody serious denies that Obama is a pro-corporate, reactionary shill for the business party. Of course. What else COULD he be? That's what elections ARE in this country. But that does NOT mean that his Presidency would have no difference. To say that Reagan and Carter, or Clinton and Bush II, are the same would, again, be repugnant both to the extra victims of the Republicans in those analogies and to the idea of intellectual thought. The part of the business faction that Obama supports tend to be less willing to sacrifice their beliefs in social areas for economic supremacy, tend to be more willing to have nationalized health insurance because of the incredible inefficiency of the current private system, etc. These are REAL differences.

To put it in a hopefully witty way: There may not be a dime's worth of difference between these two, but even a nickel or a penny matters when yer flat broke. And for many blacks and poor in this country, that is exactly where they find themselves: A nickel away from flat broke.

"Next, Mr. Wise claims that because I reject the idea that Obama is the lesser of two evils, I am “so cynical as to be of no use whatsoever to the movement for justice and liberation.” Mr. Wise claims that when it comes to “health care, education, tax policy and judicial appointments” Obama represents a better choice than McCain. But I’m not convinced about Obama’s commitment to better tax policy when he has made Wal-Mart supporter Jason Furhman, the man who said that he would model his tax policies on Ronald Reagan’s, the head of his economic team. As for healthcare, I’ll quote Matt Gonzalez’s Counterpunch article that says here http://www.counterpunch.org/gonzalez02292008.html :"

The horrible thing? Ronald Reagan's tax policy would be DOWNRIGHT PROGRESSIVE nowadays. There are real changes, Shannon, and a lot of them have been for the worse. Obama's tax policy is a real thing, it's available, his advisor is a moot point: It is a better tax policy than McCain. Again, a nickel matters.

As for Gonzalez: Notice what Gonzalez NEVER says, which is that McCain is BETTER on health insurance, or that McCain's plans would cover MORE people. No, we're committed to beating up strawmen every four years on the left. If you think elections are a tactical waste of your time, fine. If you think, like me, that backing Greens, whether in safe states or not, may be better in the long-run than an Obama presidency, also fine. But that does NOT mean that fellow leftists who evaluate real, if sometimes minute, differences between candidates and think those are important enough to spend a few hours using that one tactic to combat are being silly. The fact is that McCain's health care policy is infinitely worse.

"Ultimately, I don’t trust Obama to be a better candidate that McCain because even though his policies and principles often sound good, he has a well documented history of not following through, flip flopping, and veering to the right. For example, if Obama could claim, “Our campaign has rejected the money-for-influence game and refused to accept funds from registered federal lobbyists and political action committees” and then take money from registered lobbyists such as “Sidley Austin LLP; Skadden, Arps, et al; Jenner & Block; Kirkland & Ellis; Wilmerhale” http://www.counterpunch.org/martens05052008.html, how can I trust that he isn’t lying about his plans for things like education? If Mr. Wise trusts Obama to keep his word when he has broken it so many times before, that’s fine – I, however, do not. Furthermore, while I do not consider Obama superior to McCain, Mr. Wise is incorrect to infer that I reject the concept of lesser evils wholesale."

Does he? Actually, from what I've perceived, he has been plenty honest, say in the Audacity of Hope, and progressives have just ignored the content of what he's said. It's actually very impressive to see him say his OWN quotes to rebuff the progressives who are now in the national election holding him down.

But so what? If you can't vote for a candidate because he's a liar, then, well, don't vote. Because of COURSE candidates will use not only lies, but evasions, fallacies, dirty tricks, red herrings, insults and made-up scandals to win. You seem to be an educated woman, I'm sure you must be aware of this.

This DOESN'T mean candidates do whatever they want willy-nilly in office, for two reasons. First, they only lie when the lie is better than the loss of credibility the lie results in. In the above case, money is better than the loss of credibility about not taking it. But when the lie is about something massive, say not drastically reducing US troops in Iraq, then a candidate is crucified in public opinion. Second, they cannot lie to their true constituency, at least much, or face dire consequences. The corporate echelons that back Obama will WANT to see some of his promises enacted, since it benefits them. The combination of the two factors will lead Obama to not only make progressive policy his faction was inclined to, but actually lead to Obama making some progressive concessions to retain some credibility. This is important, and it's worth banking on.

It's, again, the height of cynicism to think that a lie here or there, or even a pattern of lying, by a candidate means that when they say they'll enact single-payer health insurance they really will give money to HMOs.

"On the subject of the candidates’ racism, Mr. Wise and I will simply have to agree to disagree, and that disagreement is another reason I don’t find Obama less of an evil than McCain. Mr. Wise may find it merely “silly” or “incorrect” that Obama presents black men as lazy, absent fathers, black parents as neglectful guardians who feed their children cold fried chicken for breakfast, black preachers who present ungilded views of America as dangerously divisive, black businesses as failing because blacks litter so much around them, black students as not achieving because they play video games instead of studying, and the institutionalized racism blacks face as 90% over, but I find such an attitude to be hateful and bigoted."

So does Tim, though a lot of Obama's comments there are clearly being exaggerated. Obama has had to, in order to appease white masses, distinguish himself from their stereotype of blacks, and one of the moves one has to make is to tell one's community to take responsibility for itself. Now, this is quite bigoted, but it IS something different when coming from one's own community, even a very assimilated part of that community. It's like the Cosby debacle: I despised everything he said, but it was NOT THE SAME as if a white person said that.

But notice how, however bad all of the above is, it is NOT THE SAME as saying "I hate gooks". McCain said that. He has further said he always will. Just like there IS a difference between "Black people are so lazy, they need to get their shit together" and "Black people are genetically inferior and need to be exterminated", so too is there a difference between castigating many (but not all) blacks and saying one hates an entire ethnic and racial group for no rational reason.

"I do believe that a black man who offers the same dishonesty about race that white leaders have long offered, who is willing to offer his presidency as a symbol of change even though it is a presidency that would have never been possible if Obama had spoken honestly about racial realities in America, who has plainly shown that he cannot challenge deep systemic prejudice because he refuses to acknowledge its existence – indeed – whose presidency will be taken by the masses as proof of its absence is especially dangerous because of the illusions he offers."

As if the average white American doesn't ALREADY buy into those illusions lock, stock and barrel?

As if millions of whites think things that are actively worse, such as that blacks are genetically oriented towards criminality, violence, rape and stupidity?

Frankly, I don't see ANY plausible scenario where Obama will make things any worse than they are. White folks believed Katrina said nothing about race. They can lock onto anything, whether Cosby or Obama, to rationalize white privilege and their own apathy towards it. You have not made a scenario as to why Obama would actually DECREASE white interest in race, nor have you even BEGUN to try to measure that against the real benefits of an Obama presidency, and there is not an INKLING that you have made a comparative argument to how McCain might damage race relations. 

"My comment that fascism was “already here” was not meant to be taken literally. While I may have misinterpreted him, it seemed to me that Mr. Wise was claiming that a good proportion of McCain supporters, if left unchecked, would usher the nation into fascism. My point was that Obama supporters are not inherently not fascist because Obama is a seriously problematic candidate, and the fact that fascistic corporatism has left Obama and McCain the only two choices our country has means that “fascism is here” in the sense that neither path is leading away from that direction. After all, if you support apartheid Israel, are happy to have a black man who seems to agree with you that black people are trifling, and are craving a war in Afghanistan are you not fascistic just because you support Obama instead of McCain?"

So now you've moved from one immensely silly position to another. The coalition behind Obama includes plenty of anti-war progressives (misled, I think, but with their hearts in the right place), blacks, traditional liberal groups, etc.

The coalition behind McCain includes religious fanatics and traditional Republican allegiances with hate groups.

Yes, again, Obama in many ways is a traditional, corporate, reactionary candidate. But the specific forms of fascism (even greater military-industrial interdependence and interlinking, crackdowns on civil liberties and minorities, etc.) are just not to be found from the Democratic party, either rank and file or elite. It's the REPUBLICAN rank and file that have fascistic potential, because it's they who pair radical religion with horrendously regressive social policy and want to create a theology.

"Mr. Wise says, “So to lament the fact that voting for Obama will perpetuate the system (whether one defines it as evil or not) is a non-sequitur. Of course it will. Ok, now what?” Well, in my essay I say, “By portraying voting as a civic duty, as opposed to a quick, infrequent ritual, citizens are relieved of their real, quotidian duties to their society.” The “now what” is the real quotidian duties, not voting for a third party – an option I never presented as feasible or having what Mr. Wise calls a “straight up revolution.”"

Well, that's great, because Tim Wise never said anything like that.

But to, on the contrary, say that voting has little or no impact is to make a similar and equally egregious error. Because it turns out that our votes DO have impact, and need to be calculated carefully. Yes, just like any tactic (writing Congressmen, teach-ins, direct action, creating coops and alternative institutions, protests, etc.), alone it is not enough. But that is no reason to not use any tactic. And it in fact offensive to me that leftists want so eagerly to hobble themselves even more, as if fighting four different and distinct yet interlinking systems of oppression simultaneously while retaining our humanity and happiness isn't already a task for the ages, by getting rid of any tactic because they don't like the way it plays out in general.

Again, we come to the, "Who cares?" assertion. We shouldn't have any illusions about voting. All right. But then we can go into the ballot booth and vote strategically, using that as part of our toolkit to accomplish change.

"The “now what” is creating schools like Marva Collins, helping heal addicts like Father George Clements, and feeding the hungry like Will Allen. Mr. Wise then comments that I am perpetuating an evil system by living in a white gated community “with nary so much as a moment's consideration of how such communities perpetuate an evil far greater than any done by Barack Obama thus far” although later in his rebuttal to my piece he suggests that one of the things that corrupts white people is being isolated from people of other races. My parents certainly thought deeply about whether or not to live in a gated community, and I firmly believe that the movement of non-whites into white spaces such as my neighborhood is one way that positive change can be brought about."

But that's moot to Tim's point, just like if Tim said that there's POTENTIAL to change the system around with voting that'd be moot to your point about the real consequences now. (Note that he didn't do that).

The fact is that white gated communities NOW, in the real present world, perpetuate racial stereotypes, white fears, and housing discrimination against minorities. They are pernicious and evil. The fact that some minorities moving in and miraculously not causing white flight is literally possible and might obviate those problems has no impact on the reality of those problems in the present. Yet you don't let that make you feel guilty, so why should anyone let the infinitely less harmful act of voting make them feel guilty?

"Mr. Wise claims that he never specified the class of the people he was writing about. I want to say without sarcasm that if Mr. Wise is truly unaware that almost every quality he lists – from reading romance novels, to liking NASCAR, to drinking Pabst beer, are commonly associated with working class people I apologize for reading classism into his imagery."

But other thing he said don't specify their class. Further, there's plenty of people in the middle class and lower upper class that have barbecues and foam fingers and don't give a flying shit. I know these people. They're decidedly not working class, but they still tend to care more about NFL than NPR.

Note that Tim DOESN'T say that doing those things is bad. He says that people doing them will do bad things. Plenty of people who don't do those things contribute to the problem, plenty of people who do those things are perfectly progressive, and so forth. Tim's point was to take away our comfort in the idea that those people are really just okay, small town folks and say that, no, they have just as much potential to become part of a fascist movement or at least complicit with fascist structures as equally decent Germans in the 30s and 40s.

"But if Mr. Wise wasn’t making a class based argument, I don’t know why Chardonnay couldn’t have been on the list beside Pabst, golf next to Nascar, Pat Conroy next to the supermarket novel."

Because those are NOT the people he's talking about.

He IS talking about SOME people in the working to middle class, in white rural areas.

Not all of them.

But a real portion, that can be statistically identified.

Tim had a piece about how much he hated New York liberals on this site, and that brought up different issues. He is perfectly capable of criticizing the middle and upper class and the racism of elites. But, as Tim pointed out, as bad as they are, and in fact in many areas however much WORSE they are, they don't tend to vote for David Duke. And that matters.

"I realize that Mr. Wise did not suggest that all fascists possess the qualities he listed or condemn all small town folks – nor did I say he did. My argument is with Mr. Wise’s claim is that fascists can be typecast into a group that can be designated “folks such as these” and then to, as I saw it, focus on the superficial characteristics of “folks such as these” even though those characteristics are shared by many non-fascists and not shared by many fascists as opposed to focusing on the fascism itself. In other words, I felt that Mr. Wise unfairly rendered both rural/white/working class/Christian non-fascists and non-rural/white/working class/Christian fascists invisible – and there is no lack, especially, of the latter group."

But that was the POINT of the piece, Shannon.

Because normally, we like to defend our small towns by making opposing groups (rural/white/working class/Christian fascists and non-rural/white/working class/Christian non-fascists) invisible instead.We like to think that Bob down the street must not be the problem; it's gotta be Monsanto.

But it IS Bob down the street too, and it is possible for him to go to hockey games and carry a foam finger and hang a flag high and drink Pabst and also support fascism.

The political fact is, and it is no more classist than saying that the Nazi rank and file were largely out-of-work angry working class former soldiers, that fascism is simply not going to come from the corporate boardrooms. Fascism in its worst forms is not their style and it doesn't serve their interests. It will come from demagogues who use a large portion of the white working class to secure themselves tyrannical power. And those white working class people who either join the movement, in our society a religious fundamentalist and extremist movement, or who are silent about it, will include a MASSIVE amount of white working class people in the vein Tim describes.

"I take issue with Mr. Wise suggesting that insularity is something particular to rural whites. First of all, many cities even when they are “diverse” are highly segregated."

Which means that your nearest neighbor of a different color is 10 blocks away rather than 10 miles away. Yeah, bad, but trust me, Shannon, I've lived in both city and rural areas. Rural areas are infinitely more insular. You NOTICE when you see someone you haven't interacted with or aren't separated from by less than two degrees of separation. Sacramento has plenty of segregation (though better than a lot of cities), but that doesn't mean that it's odd to encounter a black man, Asian, Latino or Arab walking down the street. It IS odd to see that in nearby Grass Valley, where I come from. Get the difference?

"Secondly, many diverse cities are racially stratified due to class. Secondly, many diverse cities are racially stratified due to class. The only people of color many educated, urban white people know are the ones who clean their homes or tend their children. This is true whether or not we are discussing Houston where there are large populations of whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics but each group tends to live in its own neighborhood and form racially homogenous social networks, or Chicago and New York where schools, because of housing, are so segregated that some schools are 90% white and Asian while others are 90% black and Hispanic. Mr. Wise says, “The question is whether the insularity that comes with living in small, culturally homogenous communities is correlated with religious or racial prejudice, or with political conservatism.” What I’m saying is that such small communities constantly occur within large cities and often host affluent and well educated people who are fascists. In fact, it is often the high levels of education and affluence of middle class and urban white people that allows them to live in segregated insularity. I don’t take offense to Mr. Wise critiquing insularity – just his making his critique class and geography based."

See above.

There is a difference, Shannon, between a rich insularity that nonetheless knows there are homeless people down the block and literally interacts with Latinos (if only to buy a bagel dog from them at the bodega), a rich insularity with upper-class education that nonetheless will have them read some history books about the world, a rich insularity that knows what countries are in the Middle East and what countries aren't and can lecture snobbishly on the difference between a Persian and an Arab, and small-town insularity. Again, trust me, I've seen both. Thomas Friedman may be plenty insular, but to liken him literally to a guy whose only news is 15 seconds of FOX is idiotic.

"Mr. Wise notes that in Louisiana poorer rural whites voted for Neo-Nazi David Duke far more than their urban more educated and affluent counterparts – apparently extrapolating these results to white people everywhere. However as “Third Way,” a progressive organization, noted in their paper “Unrequited Love: Middle Class Voters Reject Democrats at the Ballot Box,” the white, educated, middle and upper class voted heavily for Bush in 2004, whom I sure Mr. Wise would label the fascistic candidate in relation to Kerry, while whites who earned less than $15,000 a year, who we can presume were less educated, supported Kerry."

What a surprise, politics are complex.

First of all, though, your own reasoning is that Kerry is just as bad and therefore just as fascistic as Bush. Or are you backtracking there now too? Kerry was, after all, selling himself on his success at killing Vietnamese, not on his infinitely more admirable success in opposing war after he did that.

Second, you didn't reply to Tim's point. You just pointed out a counter-example. But Tim made a quite real anecdotal point, which was designed to counter your anecdotal point of infinitely less relevance, about how the white working class decided to vote for a horrendous candidate.

Similarly, we are seeing the white working class being quite anemic in their desire to vote for Obama, and large portions of the white working class voted for Reagan and Bush I. (One could point out that when polled, these people overwhelmingly hated the candidates' POLICIES, but that's moot to what brought them to the table: Namely, things like "moral issues" or the Willie Horton debacle, i.e. racist and religious fascism). And the proportions you cited there are not nearly as high as, oh, I dunno, BLACK disproportion voting for Democrats. Yet you're not getting up on a stump talking about how the Democrats routinely betray their own overwhelming base thanks to racism. I imagine you would in other contexts, but it matters here for this reason: When a Republican wins, it's because black folks didn't get enough whites on their side to oppose him; when a Democrat wins, it's due in no small part to overwhelming black support. In either instance, the white working class is hardly admirable.

"As far as religion, if Mr. Wise doesn’t distinguish between opposition to homosexuality and what he calls “heterosexism” I agree to disagree with him. Mr. Wise then suggests, as many people do, that because one sees one dictum from the Bible as literal and applicable to today’s society he or she should also take whatever exotic and decontextualized verse the person picks, in this case killing children who talk back, as applicable to today’s society without concern for whether or not one verse was meant to be adhered to for all time and another verse only in a particular situation during a particular era by a particular people."

What is your counter-argument? Because the same laws, the same BOOKS (Deuteronomy and Leviticus) that bigoted idiots use to support their prejudice are filled with laws that they would reject as insanity and do not follow, EVER. Things like not shaving the hair around your temples. (Notice how Orthodox Jews actually DON'T do that? Yeah, THEY can get away with criticizing homosexuality without a charge of hypocrisy. Christians can't). It's not like we're pointing to one book that is generally filled with beautiful sentiments and saying that another book filled with idiocy negates it, these are the same parts of the Bible.

If you think homosexuality is a sin, you are homophobic, or a heterosexist superiority advocate. I don't know how much more simple it can get. You're saying that a group of people is immoral for what they do. The fact that you may not want to ban their existence or their marriages doesn't make you any less of a homophobe.

"Mr. Wise says that the people “I seek to defend” are not “devout students of the Bible” when I made it quite clear in my essay that I was not seeking to defend those who use the Bible to attempt to defend bigotry, but rather taking issue with Mr. Wise failing to distinguish between studying the Bible responsibly and using the Bible pseudo-religiously, since every time the Bible appeared in Mr. Wise’s original piece it was as an ominous object."

But Tim isn't saying that every Christian on the planet is evil, not in the original piece nor in his reply to you. He's saying that taking the Bible literally leads to insanity. Those who absorb from it responsibly he said nothing about, quite appropriately, because they weren't the people he was talking about. I agree with you that a Quaker who emphasizes Jesus' love is not a fascist threat: Actually, such groups have always profoundly impressed me with their compassion, commitment to peace and progressive advocacy, and my interactions with them have always been honorable. One Quaker-backed teach-in I spoke at had the local head of the American Legion hug me because he knew that I opposed war not out of cowardice or fear but out of moral conviction.

" Mr. Wise claims he condemns people who take the Bible to a literal extreme but what he means is he condemns those who misinterpret the Bible as he doesn’t seem to know what the Bible says. People who imagine God “is white” and condemns “all those who don’t think like they do” to Hell don’t do so because they take the Bible literally as these ideas aren’t in the Bible in the first place."

Which is moot to a) their claims that they do, b) the fact that elsewhere they DO interpret the Bible literally (like the 6000 years myth) and c) the racism and bigotry those people represent, who you seem to be unwilling to actually castigate.

There are plenty of ideas in the Bible that have been blown out of proportion, but there are ideas that are really in there. When Jesus says that the path is him, for example, the literal interpretation is that he is saying, "Worship me or God hates you". There is an esoteric interpretation that Jesus is in fact saying that one can either enter a Buddha state or be condemned to suffering, and indeed I take it thusly, but that's NOT the literal interpretation, though it is hinted at.

"Therefore, literal creationism and the kind of bigotry Mr. Wise opposes come from two different sources. Secondly, by combining praying at meals with praying to a white God or believing the world was made 6,000 years ago in six days with considering Muslims and Jews to be spiritual inferiors – Mr. Wise is doing exactly what I scold him for in my essay – conflating aesthetics with morality – mixing the stuff that’s actually unethical with the stuff he just doesn’t like."

But Tim didn't say that the praying at meals was WRONG, he said it is on average associated with fundamentalist forces. He was making a polemical speech, not a serious argument. You seem unable to distinguish the difference.

"Mr. Wise says that “for Ms. Prince to suggest that rural white folks are highly nuanced in their recognition of white privilege and the oppression of people of color is so silly that I hardly know how to respond.” Mr. Wise misses my point. I didn’t positively or negatively generalize about “rural white folks.” I spoke about rural white individuals – the kind of individuals who constantly get rendered invisible, and Mr. Wise’s quick caveat that sometimes rural communities have good people, doesn’t give such individuals meaningful visibility. Furthermore, I didn’t say that my friendships with radical rural whites obviated the presence of fearful rural whites – I argued that fascism, not being rural and white, was the problem. I recognize the humanity of people non-white and white, rural and urban, and I insist that they be treated as individuals, not as stereotyped demographics. Mr. Wise claims that I ignore that he also castigates liberals “like him” who don’t challenge Joe Sixpacks for their fascism. My point was that he fails to recognize the Joe Sixpacks who are “liberals like him” and the fascists who have the same degrees, bank statements, and zip codes he does."

But the problem with this is a fewfold. First of all, Tim isn't really upper class, from what I understand. He's lived in housing projects and has done plenty of things that the upper middle class don't do, like, I dunno, oppose David Duke?

More importantly, to say "Fascism is the problem" without being willing to actually attack the rank and file of the fascist movement is politically utopian and sheer idiocy. Again, any fascist movement in this country will come from Stormtroopers, in this instance religious, generally white, fanatics who will cease the political system, institute a theology, etc. If it happens, which is far from decided, then it will happen because of those people. If you honestly think that the upper middle class voted for Bush because they agreed with the religious fanaticism and not with, say, the war or the tax cuts, then you have a major problem understanding American politics and your first step is to hit the books.

The impassioned discourse, and incredible use of language on all sides, the insight -- if more of the country understood things, or at least took the trouble to research and form opinions they could invest with this level of concentration -- I'd have a lot more hope for the future of the nation.

While I agree with Mr. Pollet that we can't state without doubt that Gore would not have invaded Iraq, the point originally made is still valid. That point, of course, is that it does matter a great deal which man is the president.  Philosophers tell us if a butterfly flaps its wings, somewhere in the world it can cause a cataclysm.  That is - of course - a dramatic overstatement, but one man's life, words, and actions will have a great influence on the next four years of our government.  He will be much more powerful than a butterfly, and he will be surrounded by those he trusts, invests, and supports. That "flock" will be very different, depending on the outcome of the coming election.

I'm fairly certain that without both George Bush and Dick Cheney in power, whether or not we - in the end - entered another conflict with Iraq - that things would have been very different.

DNW

The class issue won't go away. And Wise doesn't do a good enough job at addressing it.  After first being enfatuated with Wise's work, I attempted to go about telling all whites about how we are priviledged...including a white friend who argued passionately that she wasn't.  Shortly after the arguement ended ,she found herself evicted and desperately looking for a place to live for herself and her son--no matter how many times I could have told this woman who was facing homelessness that she was priviledged, it would fall on deaf ears. She needed to hear that she was oppressed first.   And not alone in her oppression. And that the oppression was not her fault.  And we are impotent to help her because we have become a weakened group of workers due to racism and the racial construct.

 Responding from the gut, I would say this.  Wise does exceptionally at writing, which has been very useful over the years...but unfortunately he stops there.

 Any real work against racism will have to include organizing. When you organize you reinterpret who are your allies and targets. You develop different ways of representing them.  Wise is tremendously valuable in putting out about white racism, but we need to figure out ways to get poor whites on board with us.  The whites among the antiracism movement is almost entirely middleclass.  That's been a recipe for disaster. We need to speak to that; develop action to address it--and then do the real organizing work to make it happen.
If we are worth anything as white antiracists, we'll succeed in getting poor whites involved.