Max: >I have a unique escape from these tedious debates on how many >zillions were cruelly exterminated at the hands of fascism, >communism, or imperialism. I simply disclaim support for >any of them and try to live different. It's not that hard, >actually. LP: It depends on whose ox has been gored. . . . >> mbs: Nobody can be an expert on everything. Otherwise we all adopt rules of thumb to form judgements on things. As it happens I've done some reading on the European holocaust, very little on the others. So here's my simple guide to mass murder: * anyone who says less than 6 million Jews were murdered is a fucking asshole. * any Jew who denies that millions of slavs, gypsies, gays, etc. were murdered is a putz. * whatever the machinations of imperialism, it is undeniable that stalin, mao, pol pot, and their cronies were personally responsible for enough deaths and murders to exempt them and their "thoughts" from my list of plausible guides to revolutionary change. It doesn't much matter whether Stalin killed ten million or one hundred million, since they will all stay dead in any case. Ten million is quite enough for me to come to a negative judgement. * whatever the magnitude of imperialism's crimes, the roles of organized labor, social-democracy, liberalism- post-FDR, and democratic socialism are sufficiently removed (not entirely removed) to keep them on the list of plausible forces for positive change. For instance, I don't have to get mired in arguments about how many native Americans have been victims of capitalism to have and pursue ideas about responding as best I can. I'm not indifferent to whatever the true number is. It's simply that the number has no practical bearing for me. I think this war over terminology -- was it genocide, or what -- is political in an unconstructive sense. Calling the treatment of native Americans or the Middle Passage "genocide" is a rhetorical instrument for indicting bourgeois demoratic capitalism (BDC) at its root. That doesn't mean the term is inappropriate; it does mean that its political context often -- especially on PEN-L -- makes its use tendentious. People are not arguing about history for its own sake -- they are trying to prop up problematic arguments and political precepts, and doing it in a way, I might add, that has zero political impact from any left political standpoint you care to espouse. >> .. . . All these things are related politically. The Reagan counter-revolution, which was actually initiated by Jimmy Carter and continued with Bush and Clinton, involves cooperation with neo-fascists. . . . >> This is especially strange coming from you. The U.S. government has *always* cooperated in one way or another with neo-fascists, if not fascists. How much, at different points in time, and to what end is another matter. Presently, I would acknowledge that Clinton is cooperating with neo-fascists, or at the least some very unsavory characters. So has the PRC, and so did the Soviets. To me that has little bearing on the big system question (is BDC amenable to reform) or the big political question (are reformist movements feasible and effective at a relevant level). mbs
