http://louisproyect.org/2015/08/09/why-does-the-left-suck-so-badly/
Kudos once again to Louis Proyect for the above highly sophisticated and nuanced analysis of the failure of the US left. Why didn't I think of the main reason before now? It's all those damn foreigners assaulting the ears of simple, down-home Americans with their funny words and ideological mumbo-jumbo. What the hell does Joe sixpack care about 1917? Trotsky, Stalin, Khrushchev--what does it matter?!. Damn jargon-spouting foreigners, all! And when will we learn from the spectacular success of all those, minimalist, lowest-common-denominator electoralist parties--Farmer-Labor, Peace and Freedom, the Greens--that they are the clear alternative to sectarian navel-gazing? If anything, the stunning recent triumph of Syriza over austerity in Greece should drive home the superiority of the broad party concept! Is "philistine" one of those high-falutin' European jargon-words we should strive to avoid? Jim Creegan -----Original Message----- From: pen-l-request <[email protected]> To: pen-l <[email protected]> Sent: Mon, Aug 10, 2015 1:05 pm Subject: pen-l Digest, Vol 2713, Issue 1 Send pen-l mailing list submissions to [email protected] To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to [email protected] You can reach the person managing the list at [email protected] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of pen-l digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Fwd: We Come as Friends; Tango Negro | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist (Louis Proyect) 2. Fwd: Why does ?the left? suck so badly? | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist (Louis Proyect) 3. Re: Why does 'the left' suck so badly? | Louis Proyect (Charlie) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sat, 8 Aug 2015 17:12:55 -0400 From: Louis Proyect <[email protected]> Subject: [Pen-l] Fwd: We Come as Friends; Tango Negro | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition <[email protected]>, Progressive Economics <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Premiering on Friday, August 14th in New York, two documentaries perfectly illustrate the unequal exchange between colonizer and colonized. To use a word coined by Malcolm X, ?We Come as Friends? that opens at the IFC Theater highlights the ?vulturistic? incursion into the newly formed state of South Sudan by both the West and China in search of oil, cheap land and any other wealth that can be extracted in a 21st century version of what Karl Marx called primitive accumulation. In contrast to the baleful impact of capitalist exploiters, ?Tango Negro: The African Roots of Tango? that opens at the MIST theater in Harlem (46 West 116th Street) reminds one of the beneficial legacy of Africa in the New World. While few people need to be reminded of how the music of slaves was essential to the emergence of jazz and the blues, ?Tango Negro? proves that without the African drum, the seemingly purely European tango never would have been born. This is obviously a result of Buenos Aires being mostly Black in the 1830s and 40s according to the people?s history from below that this remarkable film features. full: http://louisproyect.org/2015/08/08/we-come-as-friends-tango-negro/ ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2015 14:29:20 -0400 From: Louis Proyect <[email protected]> Subject: [Pen-l] Fwd: Why does ?the left? suck so badly? | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition <[email protected]>, Progressive Economics <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed This week a person I have had some contact as a result of my participation in Yves Smith?s Naked Capitalism website posed this question to me: ?Why does ?the left? suck so badly?? He went on to say: Saying right off the bat that ?the left,? ?progressives,? ?liberals?, along with the Greens and the Sanders people and some of #BlackLives matter seem to be such a gigantic mish-mash that ?the left? doesn?t even seem like a good name, like maybe there shouldn?t even BE a name. And that?s before we get to other kinds of organizers for the unions and the environment, and then the Marxist groupuscles, and the anarchists, and the co-op people? Anyhow, I?ll use ?the left? as a shorthand for the seething mish mash. I?m asking because of the ridiculousness of the comments we had on Greece; you saw them. So many pom pom wavers, so few analysts, and even fewer people who took action. (I mean, any sort of action at all, like organizing a small relief effort.) So many people saying ?it?s easy,? if only we ? by which they mean others ? had the will! (Granted, I?m not a doer either, but I am an excellent blogger, and I am doing what I am good at.) My response is here: http://louisproyect.org/2015/08/09/why-does-the-left-suck-so-badly/ ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2015 11:59:13 -0700 From: Charlie <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Why does 'the left' suck so badly? | Louis Proyect To: [email protected] Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed LP writes, "When I came around the left in 1967, ... a sea change had taken place since the heyday of Debs?s party and the dominance of the Communist Party in the 1930s. Workers in basic industry such as auto, steel and rail were enjoying a high standard of living and job security. There was almost no reason for them to become revolutionary, even those who were most oppressed like the Black and Latinos." Rather shortsighted on political economy. First, Black auto workers were extremely militant at the time, demanding to extend civil rights to economic justice. Second and even more important, workers' real median earnings peaked in 1973 and have stagnated and fallen ever since. Forty-plus years later, we can make sense of what happened and is happening ( http://www.hollowcolossus.com ) -- instead of picking over the landscape of Sanders, the Greens, a copy of Syriza, etc. ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l End of pen-l Digest, Vol 2713, Issue 1 **************************************
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