>how about this for a deal: you address your comments to my claims, >like that marxism is neither a one-sided celebration of progress nor a >demand for a retreat to the past, and then we can have a conversation. >i know you don't want to be troubled with all that pomo rubbish, but >waht about all that marxist rubbish? > >angela You just don't seem to get it. I am not interested in philosophizing about Marxism. That just goes around in circles and is a waste of my time. As far as my attitude toward progress is concerned, I spent the better part of five years recruiting engineers and programmers to work in Nicaragua and Africa. The project that Ben Linder started, a small-scale hydroelectric dam to supply elecricity to campesinos in northern Nicaragua, was completed by Tecnica volunteers, the organization I was President of. I have been trying, despite all sorts of odds, to launch a technical aid project for American Indians, which would use the Blackfoot reservation as a pilot project. I am not a neo-Luddite, nor a "back to nature" ideologist. I am a Marxist, as this reply to Jerry Mander, Vandana Shiva's colleague, should indicate: In the chapter "Seven Negative Points About Computers," in "Absence of the Sacred," Jerry Mander takes exception to the Canadian government's attempt to provide computer training to Indians for the purpose of resource management. Mander challenges the notion that trees, grizzly bears, water, etc., are "resources." They are rather part of mother nature and Indians should use traditional methods of keeping track of them, which is much more intuitive than a computer can hope to achieve. This is bad advice. The Indians of the United States are facing a fundamental challenge with respect to resources like oil, coal, gas and uranium. There is no "traditional" way of keeping track of them since traditional society had no particular use for them. Meanwhile, there are vicious, greedy corporations who want to avoid paying royalties to the tribes, while polluting the water and soil on their land. How can one prevent this? Clearly, this involves keeping accurate records of the quantity of such resources and accounting exactly for royalties. There are estimates that billions of dollars have been stolen from the Indian because of shady bookkeeping practices by the government and the corporations. The only way that this can be prevented is if Indians develop their own expertise and know for sure what they own and how much it is worth. Mander cites an article in the October 1984 issue of "Development Forum" titled "Worshipping a False God," by Ken Darrow and Michael Saxenian. The authors, who have been involved in developing small-scale technology in third world countries, reject the use of computers. They do not think that computers can provide low-cost communications and information processing needs to primarily agrarian societies. This is "dangerous nonsense" and Mander agrees with them. They say, "In a poor country, using a microcomputer linked by satellite to an information system half-way round the world...is absurd." To the contrary, it is "dangerous nonsense" for indigenous peoples to avoid using computers in this manner. Anybody who has been following the Zapatista struggle for the past few years understands how crucial the Internet has been. Not only has it served to educate people all around the world about what these Mayan peoples are fighting for, it has also provided an emergency response mechanism when the Mexican government has attempted to repress the movement. Immediately after the massacre in Chiapas last month that took the lives of 44 people, the Internet became a beehive of activity as word circulated. Demonstrations, picket-lines and other forms of protest forced the Mexican government to open up an investigation and public awareness will surely make it more difficult to repress the movement in the future. Furthermore, the World Wide Web is replete with pages devoted to struggles of land-based peoples all around the world, including the American Indian. The information originates with the tribes themselves and provides an accurate source of information in contrast to the misinformation contained in the daily newspaper or television and radio. For somebody to tell Indians not to use computers is not only arrogant, it is stupid. Another big problem is that Mander oversimplifies the fight between the Indian and the forces arrayed against him. The only sort of Indians that Mander seems interested in are those who are completely untainted by the outside world. If an Indian lives in a city or makes a living as a miner on the reservation, Mander ignores him. He only pays attention to the "pure" Indian who survives by hunting or fishing the way that he did a hundred or a thousand years ago. Hence, he devotes an entire chapter to the Dene Indians in Canada, who live in the Northwest Territories where the traditional economy revolves around caribou hunting and ice fishing. In the 1970s, they discovered oil on Dene land and pretty soon all the usual culprits descended upon them: oil corporations, lawyers and real-estate developers. What is Mander's biggest concern, however? It is that television, of all things, will disrupt the Dene's simple life. He worries that televised soap operas will replace traditional story-telling. This is astonishing. When the Dene's traditional way of life is being challenged by the outside world, he focuses in on the threat of television. Television, as everybody knows, is a means of escape just like alcohol or drugs. If you want to remove the temptation of such things, you have to give people an alternative. In the case of the Dene, the alternative was there to begin with, namely their traditional way of life. Mander has never really considered the question of POLITICS, since it is only political struggle that can block corporations. Mander's approach is that of the good missionary who wants to paternalistically plead the case of the Indian. His message seems directed toward the corporations: "Please leave these defenseless people alone." He has functioned on the boards of various corporate backed environmental groups and had a career in the world of advertising beforehand, so it easy to understand why he would try to act as the Indian's representative to this world. He reminds me of the Franciscan priests who used to intercede on behalf of the Indian during the 1500s when they asked the crown or the church to be more merciful. Paternalistic intercession is less useful than self-organization and self-defense of the Indian peoples. That is something the Indian can only do for himself. Mander has nothing to say about this. In his 400 page book, he never once mentions, for example, the American Indian Movement. Ward Churchill's review of Mander's book, titled "Another Dry White Season," (contained in "From a Native Son"), contains the astonishing observation that of 305 bibliographic entries in the book, only seventeen are by Indian authors. Not one of Vine Deloria Jr.'s dozen books is cited, nor any by Churchill himself, nor any by any other American Indian political leaders. The only conclusion you can draw is that Mander thinks the fight is between poor, defenseless, "pure" traditional peoples and the government and corporations. And whom can they count on in their hour of need? Superman himself: Jerry Mander. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
