I wrote: >>>I wonder if the members of the youth branch of DSA are joining the armed forces in droves, to contribute to the war effort.<<< Doug answers: >> Max Sawicky has already pronounced that to be a silly critique! Why should the policy makers and pundits of the future be asked to set aside their career path to take up arms? They have too much to contribute in the intellectual sphere to be bothered with mud & bullets.<< Max ripostes: >Silly shit indeed. What's sauce for the goose and all. The critics of NATO are at no greater risk than the supporters. If you're a revolutionary, by this logic, you should be rampaging thru Kosova with the Serbian commandoes, defending the working class against reactionary nationalists. < That's assuming that the critics of the US/NATO war against Serbia all side with Serbian ethnic chauvinism, an assumption I've criticized again and again. Max, have you ever read Chomsky? >... And anyone who thinks they will advance in the U.S. power elite by enlisting in the Democratic Socialists of America, pro-war or not, is too dumb to be a concern to anyone.< And here's a nasty and sarcastic crack that I held back because I didn't want to offend Nathan: maybe the leaders of US/NATO will decide they've made a mistake in attacking Serbia, because if DSA supports their policy, it must be wrong. In a separate missive, I wrote: >>> No, you're no "social fascist," Max. As long as I'm around, I'm going to fight the Manichean attitude expressed by Eldridge Cleaver that "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."<<< Max responds: > I was not indulging in self-pity, at least not in this post. My reference was not to Manicheanism, but to a specific political posture promoted by Joe Stalin during his leftward-lurch and mirrored in the notion that liberals are as bad as or worse than conservatives from a socialist standpoint. < I haven't seen anyone put forth the "social fascism" thesis (i.e., the view that the folks immediately to the right of us on the political spectrum are as bad as or worse than the fascists or Nazis), though there have been so many pen-l messages of late I may have missed it. The closest to a "third period" view I've seen was Nathan's view that NATO's conquests would build the basis for socialism (and thus should be supported), which as someone pointed out, has parallels to the "after Hitler, us" position of the CP of Germany. BTW, I don't read Stalin's third period of "ultra-leftism" as really being leftist (whatever that means). Rather than using the simplistic "left" vs. "right" political spectrum, I would see that period as a matter of the tightening of bureaucratic control of the COMINTERN by Moscow that went along with the consolidation of a new class system in the old USSR. (It's a little like the "ultra-leftism" that hit a lot of leftist groups (including the International Socialists and the Socialist Workers Party, among others), where the national-office bureaucrats and the central committee united to push sectarian politics and the "colonization" of factories (sending students and middle class folk to work in factories to mobilize the workers), which went along with the consolidation of power by the bureaucrats and central committees. Of course, Stalin did it on a much bigger scale.) >To this has been added the new, even more retrograde, anti-Marxist, monochromatic historical view that capitalist was no advance over feudalism, or that within capitalism no meaningful progress has ever taken place.< I haven't seen that perspective put forth. To whose opinions are you referring? >The foreign policy extension of this view is revolutionary defeatism. Every imperialist war (e.g., every war involving capitalist powers) should be opposed and turned into a civil war. Ergo, we should oppose whatever NATO might do and let the Kosovars and Serbs sort out their own disputes.< I'm sure someone has that perspective on pen-l. But I've also noticed a large number of other arguments put forth against that war. >...We've gotten a lurid glimpse of this indifference right here at home, in the form of endless sniping at the premise that the Milo regime is guilty of crimes against humanity, mass deportation at a minimum, and possibly mass murder.< I haven't seen this as "endless." It seems only part of the crowd in pen-l. In the real world of politics, of course, the most active element opposing the war is the Serbian-Americans, who tend to apologize for Milosevic. But it's important not to confuse pen-l with real-world politics. Max wrote: >>And anyone who thinks they will advance in the U.S. power elite by enlisting in the Democratic Socialists of America, pro-war or not, is too dumb to be a concern to anyone.<< Tom Walker writes: >They could always serve their "socialist in my romantic youth" time in DSA, then have second thoughts and intellectually mature to the right. It's been done. < Given the hegemony of "right-wing" thinking (i.e., acquiescence to and defense of the power structure), it's pretty normal for leftists to "grow up," "become more pragmatic," and "come to terms with political reality," which means "shifting to the right." However, the DSA-types are not likely to do this is a radical way; they're gradualists (and mostly careerists). Those most likely to suddenly shift to the "right" are those who want _instant_ solutions and _believe_ that "the revolution is coming soon." When instant solutions don't happen and the revolution doesn't come, many of these people "snap" and decide "what the heck, I might as well make money" or "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Since there are problems with all parts of the usually-defined "Left," I never assume that just because a Leftist says something it's right. As old Rosa Lux.'s personal motto said, "doubt all." BTW, Max my spell-checker told me to replace your last name with "seasick." Note that I didn't do so. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
