James Heartfield:
>Clearly the Native Americans - considered as a cultural group - had an
>interest in supporting whichever power promised less change in the
>region. They were no match for the yankee ingenuity that was growing on
>their hinterlands, and could not compete with the new technologies that
>were being applied to farming and industry. Their whole way of life was
>threatened. Tragically, though, those interests meant that they would
>always be on the losing side, backing the most reactionary forces at
>work in the new continent.
>
I'm glad that James Heartfield has joined PEN-L so that this august body
can get a feel for the sort of mindset that has created a speakers bureau
for the Cato and Hudson Institutes in the name of Marxism. I suspect that
James has simply crossposted an old LM article, but that is just as well.
The sentence "tragically, though, those interests meant that they would
always be on the losing side, backing the most reactionary forces at work
in the new continent" speaks volumes about their methdology. The Indians
become cats-paws of reactionary forces rather than societies fighting for
their own just demands. James has a similar analysis of the "Odonis" in
Nigeria, who were upsetting Shell Oil's efforts to revolutionize the means
of production and consummate the bourgeois revolution. I had to explain to
him that there are no "Odonis" in Nigeria, just "Ogonis". But why quibble.
Odonis--Ogonis. We certainly know *who* he was condemning. It was the
fishermen and farmers led by Ken Saro-Wira. They were cats-paws of
imperialism, who were dividing Nigeria. And who were the imperialist
agencies manipulating Nigerian politics? The CIA? No, it was the Body Shop,
the greenish bath-soap and body-oil company, whose CEO campaigned for the
release of Ken Saro-Wira. Body Shop as imperialist goliath trampling on
Shell Oil? Sound nutty? Well, of course it's nutty. Welcome to Furedi-land.
It is most telling that James Heartfield's little essay contains not a
single word of outrage about what has happened to American Indians. It is a
coldblooded attempt to rationalize their extermination. The Indians
supported the reactionaries, so they got what they deserved. Absolutely
loathsome stuff and antithetical to Marxism as I will prove.
Louis Proyect
