Re: [Marxism] Petition to stop the WikiLeaks crackdown

[Carrol Cox]

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Ralph Johansen
I think you'll be interested and might want to support the campaign, 
too. Check out the link below and join me in signing:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/wikileaks_petition/96.php

I had my usual trouble with web sites. If I expand the font large enough to
read, I also expand the screen so much that I can't find anything on it. I
can on deal with the few web sites that keep ALL their buttons and labels
for them in the upper left hand corner of the screen. I used to struggle
with web sites but I have given it up as wasted energy. I take one look, and
if  the buttons are not where I quickly see them (after expanding the  font)
I skip it.

Carrol





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Re: [Marxism] Does Liu Xiaobo Really Deserve the Peace Prize?

[Carrol Cox]

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S. Artesian:
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I don't mean to rain on anybody's parade, but WTF?  Who cares who wins the 
Nobel Peace or any other Prize?

Gossip interest. This list, like the other left lists, is at least 2/3
gossip. The other third sometimes has political relevance.

Carrol




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Re: [Marxism] Obama Isn't Spineless, He's Conservative

[Carrol Cox]

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Moral rants (applying nasty labels on those one dislikes or is struggling
against) is sport for losers.

Consider the most wonderful rants of this sort in English: the rants of the
widows murdered nobility and royalty. That's what it sounds like to me when
I read about how horrible   capitalists or capitalist politicians are.

Know your enemy. Don't waste time and passion in mere grunts of disapproval.

Carrol




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Re: [Marxism] Obama Isn't Spineless, He's Conservative

[Carrol Cox]

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Mark Lause

MARGARET WYLES wrote: "I can't look into Obama's
heart.  I didn't even vote for him.  BUT, I think  it's useless to criticize
Obama for what he is or isn't doing."

It's "useless"?  Well, I'm convinced.

A verbal preference: I like to us the word "criticize" in reference to
differences among  friends, allies, comrades. With enemies, I prefer the
term _attack_.

Therefore I attack the POTUS, regardless of his/her name or party.

"War criminal" is part of the job description for U.S. presidents.

And one does not have to look into his "heart." This is not a matter of
moral judgment of the person but of political condemnation of an enemy.
Leave moral judgments to St. Peter.

Carrol




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Re: [Marxism] Obama Isn't Spineless, He's Conservative

[Carrol Cox]

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Artesian



Just because they are intelligent, doesn't mean they aren't stupid.  Just 
because they are consistent in their loyalty to capitalism, doesn't mean 
they aren't unprincipled. [etc]

Nonsense. You are trying to merge politics, moralism, & logic. They don't
mix ths way.

"Principled" and "Unprinipled" are not moral judgments (and in any case Marx
himself never mad moral judgments. In his view, capitalism was not evil, it
was history.

It is impossible, exept on religious grounds, to ground moral judgments.

Carrol




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Re: [Marxism] Obama Isn't Spineless, He's Conservative

[Carrol Cox]

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Yes. Of Course. I've been proclaiming on lbo and other lists for 10 years
that _none_ of the Democratic leadership is spineless. Nor are they stupid.
Nor are they unprincipled. They are courageous, they are highly intelligent,
and they stick to their principles even when they KNOW doing so will lead to
electoral defeat.

Their principles are _capitalist_ principles. They defend world capitalism.

And yet just the other day there was a long thread on this list with the
really stupid subject line referring to Obama as a SELLOUT. How ignorant can
you get.

And  a week or so ago a number of posters (including some Marxists) on lbo
were complaining that Obama was not speaking out loudly enough or some such
shit.

He speaks out very loud indeed.

He loves being "forced" to compromise with the Republicans. That leads him
exactly to the end results he has been aiming for.

REALLY

STOP CALLING THE DP SELLOUTS.

STOPE CALLING THEM STUPIDD.

STOP CALLING THEM COWARDLY.

They are the enemy. Not a wealk friend but THE enemy.

Carrol




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Re: [Marxism] More Facts (Dirt) on Anna Ardin and how She Destroyed Assange Case Evidence Over And Over Again

[Carrol Cox]

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Mark Lause: 

Can there be a "feminism run amok" that jibes with paternalism?  Well, it's
hardly "feminism" if it does. 

==

Unfortunately, Yes. Check out the Femecon list (feminist economists).

The variety of feminism on exhibit there, WHEN AND ONLY WHEN, it enters
actively into a particular political struggle,or is expressed by someone on
a list such as this or lbo-talk, needs to be confronted.

My objection on this list about 10 years ago with a sudden burst from Jim
Cramer on the subject of "Bourgeois Feminism" was based precisely on its
bursting out of nowfhere. There was no legitimate  context or need for such
an outburst.

David's sudden bringing in of a bunch of 'crazies' was analogous to that
uncalled for post from Cramer.

But again¸what gives the feminists on femecon "space" for their anti-woman
feminism is the failure of leftists in general over the years and decades to
incorporate into their thought and action the emancipation of women
(including 'making room' for women in left politics.

The First Feminist Movement in part emerged from their exclusion from the
abolitionist movement. The second feminist movement emerged in part from
their treatment in the anti-war movement of the '60s.  

Finally, there is always a fringe element (or several fringe elements to ANY
movement, and to let that fringe enter into one's response to the movement
(or even appear ot let it) is just bad politics. Several posters on lbo-talk
(quite rational in most respects) can't refrain from taking gratuitous jabs
at real or alleged "hippies." Why? What's the point of it? There is a
poignant letter from Paul Baran to Paul Swezzy (I think in the very early
'60s) in which he speaks of his weekly trip into San Francisco to attend the
meetings of a little ragtail anti-war group. But he made the complaint in a
private letter, not just as a general attack on "beats" or whatever.

In other words, Paul Baran had dhis focus on the main struggle, and worked
with whatever was there to work with.

If on some occasins its obnoxiously liberal feminist economists who are
_there_ on a given struggle, then you work with them. And you don't attack
them behind their backs. If they start to fuck up the struggle, you oppose
them. But yu don't oppose them just to show how radical you are: instead
that is apt to suggest how sexist you are.

Carrol




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[Marxism] Apologiy for Not clipping ==The New Anti-capitalist Party

[Carrol Cox]

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Apologies for not clipping this post.

Carrol




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[Marxism] Identity Politics: Scope, Limits, & Need for was The New Anti-capitalist

[Carrol Cox]

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"Working Class" politics of the past have been identity politics, the class
defined narrowly in cultural terms.   BUT THAT STRUGGLE WAS AN ABSOLUTE
NECESSITY. I'm concerned here both with the reasons for that necessity, the
reasons _some_ forms of identity politics remain crucial, and the necessity
to go _beyond_ identity politics.

The Chartists fought and died for the vote. (Other rights as well, but that
was central.) That is, they fought for the right to be Citizens, for
bourgeois equality. The small Russian working class had also to fight for
the peasant's right to be a citizen, not a peasant. (The bourgeois never did
actually fight for bourgeois equality: the working class had, over and over
again, to do that for them.)  It is worth remembering that the members of
the First International addressed each other not as "Comrade" but, following
the model of the French Revolution, as _Citizen_. We speak casually of
citizens today, but that was an "identity" utterly unknown in all
non-capitalist societies and in most capitalist states until very recently.
In the poem of that title, Kipling says to "Gunga Din" "You're a better man
than I am Gunga Din" (quoted from memory). He would have shit in his pants
had anyone asked him if Gunga Din was a bettyer CITIZEN than he!  There
remain islands of inequality in u.s. society, leaving aside for a moment the
rest of the world. The Gay struggle for the right to marry is a struggle for
the abstract equality of bourgeois society. And the most dramatic and
perhaps even the currently most crucial battle for abstract equality is of
course the battle of migrants to equate "resident" to "citizen" (I have
argued elsewhere that when an actual left takes form in the u.s. (as opposed
to the large collection of  leftists and grouplets we have now), one core
demand will be for Open Borders, another one to Abolish the Prison System.
Both are demands for bourgeois equality that must be fought for and won on
the route to an actual anti-capitalist struggle, the struggle of the
working-class to abolish itself. (I have just in effect paraphrased the
final chapter of Marx's Wages, Price and Profit.)

And of course the struggle for actual  full citizenship for women goes on,
particularly inside left movements and left conversation among male
leftists. I wonder what is the total number of women in that
hole-in-the-corner tendency that David Thorstad chose to represent the
nature of the current women's movement. (He will howl that I have
misconstrued him. But there is no damn reason to even mention that trivial
tendency except to use it to typoify the woman's movement. Nothing in any
current discussion on this list, nothing in current political activity,
raised the question of that trivial 'tendency'; He hauled it in to
trivialize the whole struggle of women for full bourgeois equality.

Lenin noted that anarchism is the price the working class pays for its sins
of opportunism. The politics of the tendencies that David searches out to
mock (for no real reason except to mock women in general) is the price
leftists pay for their sins of opportunism on the "woman question."

Carrol




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Re: [Marxism] The New Anti-capitalist Party and Islamophobia

[Carrol Cox]

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Speaking of Identity politics, Working-Class politics have really been
identity politics. They have fought to get more power for a very narrowly
conceived "working-class." If you believe that the statement, "P is a
worker," tells you _anything_ about P as a person, then you are captured by
Working-Class Identity politics instead of class politics.

Carrol

-Original Message-
From: marxism-bounces+cbcox=ilstu@lists.econ.utah.edu
[mailto:marxism-bounces+cbcox=ilstu@lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of
David Thorstad
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 6:18 PM
To: cb...@ilstu.edu
Subject: [Marxism] The New Anti-capitalist Party and Islamophobia

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Arthur Maglin wrote:

http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3028&Itemid=2
13 


The majority of the left in France believe that the hijab is an assault 
on women's rights. This position quickly moves into the prejudice that 
Muslim women in France are more oppressed than non-Muslim women, that 
the experience of women in, say, Saudi Arabia is merely an extreme case 
of an oppression which is inherent in Islam.
==
This brings to mind the lesbian-feminist/separatist success in getting 
the "G" replaced by the "L" in the increasingly silly and expanding 
"LGBT2SQIAA etc. etc." acronym. What a problem: How to weigh those 
oppressions? Among same-sexers, for now at least, the "L" has won out as 
the supposedly "most oppressed" and thus deserving of first place 
mention in all cases.
 This is all silliness from the point of view of any rational approach.
 Identity politics running amok.
Davie

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Re: [Marxism] More Facts (Dirt) on Anna Ardin and how She Destroyed Assange Case Evidence Over And Over Again

[Carrol Cox]

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Mark Lause: Wait a bit, Carrol.  At the rate things are going, the
government's  going to dredge up the economics of Henry Clay...

There's that. I was sort of thinking of Walpole! But I guess Clay fits
better here. 

Carrol




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Re: [Marxism] More Facts (Dirt) on Anna Ardin and how She Destroyed Assange Case Evidence Over And Over Again

[Carrol Cox]

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I deleted the post when I came to the word "Stalinism," which has no more
meaning today than "Whg." In fact, "whiggery" as used by Yeats has rather
more contemporary meaning than "Stalinist." I don't doubt the book is bad. I
just doubt the interest of anything a user of the term "Stalinist" might
have to say.

Carrol




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Re: [Marxism] More Facts (Dirt) on Anna Ardin and how She Destroyed Assange Case Evidence Over And Over Again

[Carrol Cox]

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Carrol, the ruling class of the US and its flunkies overseas are 
engaged in some of the most egregious violation of first amendment 
rights since Watergate. 

Which is a serious mistake on their part. Probably one of the few things
(perhaps the only thing) which can generate mass resistance (the kind of
mass resistance from which either real reforms or revolutionary conditions
develop) is represdsion. (The fixation on exploitation of so many on this
list flies in the face of 600 years of passive acceptance of exploitation).
And the discussion should be wholly on ways of generating resistance to that
growing represdsi9on. And the "facts" necessary for that have, in fact, been
available for a century or so. They certainly do not include this offensive
concern with the private morals of some woman in Sweden. That shows
indifference to struggle and fascination with mere gossip.

Carrol

Note: When an actual mass movement arises again (and it will, though there
is no knowing when or how it will be triggered), THEN maximalist tactics
will be sterile; discussion, during such an interim as the present, which is
NOT maximalist is sterile.







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Re: [Marxism] More Facts (Dirt) on Anna Ardin and how She Destroyed Assange Case Evidence Over And Over Again

[Carrol Cox]

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Les Schaffer: i don't have time right now to get into it, but are the rest
of you here
ok with this idiocy? or the Counterpunch article posted yesterday that
spoke of "castrating feminists" when discussing the women accusers of
Assange???

No. But then I'm not comfortable with _any_ part of this discussion.

We don't need any of these facts. We need more hardheaded exploration of how
we can make political use of the overload of information we already have.

If facts were useful in overthrowing the wages system (and it is that, not a
particular capitalist class that is the oppressor) capitalism would have
disappeared long ago.

This list makes a fetish of empty information.

But the discussion of the woman in almost all quarters has indeed been
pretty revolting.

Carrol




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Re: [Marxism] What to do about Obama's sellout

[Carrol Cox]

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What to do about Obama's sellout

You can't sell out what you have never been part of. This question is
bizarre.

Obama has made it clear from his first day in politics that his loyalty was
to capitalism. He has pursued that  loyalty with intelligence, vigor, and
courage. He has never "sold out" capitalism. 

Carrol





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Re: [Marxism] Anthony Brain on snapshot which Keith Brasher article gives of main dynamics within China!

[Carrol Cox]

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Discussion of the Guelphs & Ghibellines would be of more contemporary
interest than any text containg the words "Stalinism" or "Trotskyism."

Carrol

-Original Message-
From: marxism-bounces+cbcox=ilstu@lists.econ.utah.edu
[mailto:marxism-bounces+cbcox=ilstu@lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of
MARIAN BRAIN
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2010 5:34 PM
To: cb...@ilstu.edu
Subject: [Marxism] Anthony Brain on snapshot which Keith Brasher article
gives of main dynamics within China!

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WHAT KEITH BRADSHER’S NEW YORK TIMES/INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE REVEALS
WHICH 
DIRECTION THE CHINESE BUREAUCRACY IS HEADING? by Anthiny Brain
 
 
The Chinese Bureaucracy has gained the most from trade with Imperialism. 
There 
is still room for them to benefit with continuing trade but they are telling

American Imperialism in particular they will not give up their privileges
which 
Bradsher reports.    They are in a position to do enormous damage to
American 
Imperialism if the U.S. protectionists win out.  It is due to the
superiority of 
a planned economy which explains why China is leading such an export growth
in 
Asia; Africa; Middle East; Latin America; and even whole parts of Europe. 
  
 
China also has an advantage of what Trotskyist Ernest Mandel called the 
Bourgeois norms of distribution in terms of world trade with relation to 
American Imperialism in particular due to an over-valued Dollar.  Bradsher 
points out how this has strengthened Chinese producers of telecommunication 
equipment; cars; and solar panels.  Imperialism allowing the Chinese
workers’ 
state to become important to an international division of labour since the
1980s 
is another indication of Capitalism’s decay.  One consequence of American 
Imperialism losing the Iraq and Afghan wars is that they have massively
built up 
their debts and over-valuing the Dollar.  Oil in the Middle East has become
more 
expensive as a direct result of American Imperialism losing the Iraq war. 
The 
overthrow of Yeltsin on January 1st 2000 represented that wing of Russian 
Stalinism who did not want Imperialism gaining more ownership of their
natural 
resources, which culminated in the Oligarch Mikhail K. being arrested and 
imprisoned in the autumn/winter of 2003. 

 
Bradsher describes the “political clout” of Chinese Industrial Bureaucrats
in 
ensuring that 90% of borrowing goes into nationalised industries.  This is
where 
a whole section of the Bureaucracy’s privileges are based.  Mandel when he
wrote 
“Power and Money” documented all the main Bureaucratic layers within the
Soviet 
Bureaucracy. Mandel argued the main contradictions within the Bureaucratised

workers’ states are between the non-Capitalist mode of production and the 
Bourgeois norms of distribution.  There has to be some modification of this 
analysis due to Capitalist inroads on top of Bureaucratic pillage within
Eastern 
Europe is led to massive socio-economic dislocations.  Russia since 2000 has

recovered due to Capitalists being weakened internally and those extreme 
Bureaucratic pillagers being reigned in partly to stop revolutionary
upheavals 
by the workers.  Eastern Europe remains workers’ states because the
Capitalist 
firms have not completed the overthrow of Bureaucrats who base their
privileges 
on nationalised industries/workplaces.
 
Capitalist inroads (except when millions were laid off before 1989 Tinaman 
Square protests and layoffs during 1994) have not had the same damaging
effect 
on China that it has on Eastern Europe and Russia.   This is primarily
because 
the Capitalist elements played  a supplementary role  in supplying goods to
the 
workers’ state.  Trotskyists oppose the Capitalist inroads as unnecessary 
because billions/trillions could be saved once the workers overthrow
Stalinism 
through a successful Political revolution.  As Trotsky; Cannon; and Joseph 
Hansen stressed in their writings you have to distinguish between the norms
of 
workers’ states and their reality composed on internal dialectical 
contradictions.  

 
If American Imperialism goes protectionist against the Chinese Bureaucracy
 it 
could severely weaken the Capitalist elements within China.  Imperialism and
the 
Capitalist elements within China want interest rates to be increased so
their 
profits can increase and cause massive dislocations to nationalised 
industries/workplaces.  If Imperialism /Capitalist elements cannot
immediately 
overthrow a workers’ state they will want to cause the maximum damage,
laying 
the basis for a Capitalist counter-revolution.  Several 

Re: [Marxism] Topic thread sequence

[Carrol Cox]

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Most mail programs allow the user to order the "Inbox" in a number of
different ways. The default I presume on all is the same--order received.
But the user can change that order.
Just looking at the inbox will probably show how to do this. The items will
be in columns. One clicks at the top of the column desired.

Carrol




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Re: [Marxism] CO2 rising - the science of global warming

[Carrol Cox]

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Leonardo Kosloff
You realize this makes the case for a social revolution in Argentina,
Uruguay AND the US all the more urgent :) 


Unfortunately, that which makes an action urgent does not make the action
more probable. One cannot will a social revolution; one cannot even predict
the conditions (except in general and vague terms) that might actually bring
about a socihttp://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Good take-down of John Holloway's latest book

[Carrol Cox]

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Leonardo Kosloff: "What ridiculous nonsense. It's called the critique of
political economy 'precisely' because it is a political work."

---

Sigh. The only word that Marx himself contributed to that title was
"critique." He did not coin the term "political e onomy." 

Those who coined the phrase were referring to the Greek word from which we
getr "economy." That word meant the"management of an estate" (of a rich
man). It came from the Greek word _oikos_, which meant, roughly, homestead,
estate, household. "Political" comes from the greek word, _polis_, city. So
Political Economy as opposed to the economy of the household meant econmy of
the CITY. Hence "Political Economy" is essentially a synonym for CAPITALISM!
It named the _subject_  being studied by those who used the term.  It had
NOTHING whatever to do with the contemporary meaning of "politics," which
hardly existed in the 17th & 18th centuries.

The Critique (more precisely, immanent critique) of capitalism (and not any
particular capitalism but the "ideal average" of all possible capitalist
economies) is clearly of enormous importance, and it is also clearly of
little aid in actually working out political tactics.





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[Marxism] Note on the Panthers

[Carrol Cox]

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David Hilliard spoke at Illinois Wesleyan University last  night¸and I
discovered that what had been my speculation back in the '60s has been
confirmed by documents released from the Cointel program.

The FBI repression of the Panthers was triggered by their Breakfast program.
That was what made the FBI frightened of them as a serious danger. One of
the documents speaks of the necessity to criminalize them.  The nonsense
various ignoranmuses spouted on the Panthers on this list a few months ago
was made up almost entirely of lies first circulated by the FBI.

The murder for which Bobby Seale and other Panthers were accused (and all
acquitted) was committed by an FBI informant in the Connecticut Panthers.
Ditto those babbling ignorantly on this list.

If Hilliard speaks near any of you, I highly recommend attending. To be
ignorant of the Panthers is to be a total ignoramus in respect to the '60s.

Carrol




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Re: [Marxism] Role of the Army

[Carrol Cox]

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Mark Lause: It's an older proposal than that...  try Edward Bellamy from the
1880s or
George Lippard from the 1840s.

Well, anyone who thinks about it, or surveys various successful and
unsuccessful insurrections of the last century can easily see that their
success or failure depends  on whether the troops will fire on demonstrators
or not. 

Carrol




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Re: [Marxism] Cuba headed in the same direction as China and Vietnam?,

[Carrol Cox]

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The late Mark Jones, commenting on the fall of the USSR, labelled that 
society a "liberated zone" -- one that had lasted for 70 years. I
believe the same label is illuminating for _all_ the nations that have
struggled to delink themselves from international capital.  It is
therefore misleading to judge them as "socialist states" or "failed
socialist states." I think Lenin knew this: that Russia could not
achieve socialism without a sociialist revolution in several of the core
capitalist states. But what what made Lenin great was simply the model
he provides of a revolutionary who knws that one must make the effort
regardless of abstract theoriy. One cannot know the future, and hence it
is always wrong to refrain from struggle on the basis of the ripeness of
conditions. Rosa Luxemburg made this point specifically in regard to the
Paris Commune in her Stuttgart Congress speeches.

Most "criticisms" of these liberated zones are grounded in an
essentially voluntarist view of revolutionary history -- the concealed
premise is always "if they had had the right theory they would have
succeeded" -- success being measured against a false conception of what,
up to now, has been achievable. Socialism simply was not on the agenda.
The whole world was not yet capitalist.  These revolutions moved their
nations into the 20th-c. They correctly aimed at more, but we are
wrongif we don't see now that more was not possible.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Irwin Silber died

[Carrol Cox]

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Matthew Russo wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Silber was a regular Stalinist

When the archaism "Stalin" appears in a text, I stop reading.

Stalin is a halloween mask to scare little children.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] self-indulgence

[Carrol Cox]

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Tom Cod wrote:
> 
> 
> the point I was alluding to had to do with an affinity for obscurantism and
> dogma.

But apparently you are more  interested in Declarations of Faith ("I am
a Marxist") than in building an anti-capitalist movement in the u.s.
What have you done lately to bring that about?

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Socialism and Religion

[Carrol Cox]

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(Note: I was away from home over the weekend & am just reading Friday's
posts now.)

Religion (or non-religion),  as far as I'm concerned, is a private
matter. 

The necessity is to destroy capitalism, as it was unmasked in Marx's
Critique. And that Critique holds regardless of "world views" or
religious conviction. The question to ask, then, is not, "Are you a
Marxist?" but "Are you committed to the anti-capitalist struggle?"
Theoretical debate over the nature of capitalism is inescapable, for it
is necessary to know more deeply the enemy that will destroy us all if 
we do not destroy it. Theoretical debate over the nature of the universe
is interesting and perhaps ultimately importnant, but is not the core
question we face now.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] evolutionary psychology and socialism?

[Carrol Cox]

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Andrew Pollack wrote:
> 
> 
> Evolutionary psychology is a reactionary fraud. And the scary thing is
> that in the last few years the New York Times and other mainstream
> science coverage has treated every supposed new link found between our
> genes and our behavior as if it's valid science.

Even scarier is the way in which so many leftists can fall for anything
that calls itself "science," no matter how idiotic.

For a wonderful puncturing  of myths abut "genes," see this lecture by
Richard Lewontin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we4ZzjKxFHM

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Earliest use of word "Stalinism"?

[Carrol Cox]

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I've read almost none of this thread, nor do I intend to.

But may I remark that I have, NEVER, seen one single intelligent use of
the word in discussing politics in the United States or Western Europe.
Every post on this list for 10 years that I have read which contained
the word "stalinism" was a post that should not have been sent. The very
use of the word in referecnce to current political tendencies
demonstrates that the user is not thinking at that point in his/her
post.

It names nothing.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Earliest use of word "Stalinism"?

[Carrol Cox]

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Re: [Marxism] Earliest use of word "Stalinism"?

[Carrol Cox]

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Néstor Gorojovsky wrote:
> 
> It has more to do with the failures and limits of the Left wings in
> national revolutionary movements in Latin America and the Arab world
> than one may guess

I do not know enough to make any concrete judgment of events in Latin
America. But I want to point out that defeat can come _either_ from
one's own weakness _or_ from the strength of the enemy.

To say that internal weakness or mistakes account for the "failure" of
the revolution in Country X is potentially a voluntarist mistake: You
are claiming that the correct line would have led to victory. My general
feeling is that _no conceivable_ policy, program, or strategy could have
brough about successful socialist revolution in the 20th century. It
would  have made _no_ difference in the USSR who led it with what
policy. As Mark Jones said once, the SU was a liberated zone that lasted
for 70 years. It is voluntarist to claim that under world conditons in
the 20th century _any_ policy woukld have led to "socialism" in the SU
or China. They both did magnificently given the odss against them.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Background to growing self-assertion of China's workers

[Carrol Cox]

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I am disturbed by posts such as this. The unstated (and perhaps not even
wholly conscius) implication of the subject line is that somehow
"growing assertion of workers" is of political importance. It is: it
indicates  that capitalism is growing stronger. Such growing assertionin
the wwest _never_ contributed, in the least, to radical political
change. It never will. One of the current weaknesses of u.s. capitalism
is that u.s. workers are not self-assertive enough. Such assertion is
the health of capitalism as war is the health of the state. Unrest among
Chinese workers undoubtedly disturbs the Chinese elite -- it always does
because capitalists themselves can be stupid about this. But such unrest
will put more muscle in Chinese capitalism.

Are we forever to cheer little tiny meaningless gains of (those magic
words, "THE WORKERS" and nevere focus ourthoughts even marginally of
striking blows abut the enemy of humanity -- not the capitalists
themselvess actually, but a system of social relatiosns which has
plunged humanity into a century of barbarism and  is now thretening even
the livability of our planete.

Can't we at least _think_ and _talk_ about our final goal (power) rather
than hide from the necessity of that goal in cheerign every little piece
which gives a minutes comfort to a few inhabitants of humanity's death
row.

Carrol


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[Marxism] "The Woman Question"

[Carrol Cox]

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My subject line, without quotes, is one traditional way of stating
discussions of the role and status of women in capitalist society. A
classic work, having a history of Marxist treatments of the question is
Lise Vogel, _Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a Unitary
Theoroy_, which includes a history of treatments of the "question" from
the 2dI on. But a note about Vogel herself. She started out as an art
historian, and had achieved tenure at Yale in that field. Then she
became involved in civil-rights work, was radicalized, resigned here
position at Yale, and went back to school to earn a Ph.D. in Sociology.
She is now a Professor of Sociology at Rider University. Few of us have
thrown away as distinguished a professional position as she did for our
politics. She is also author of Woman Questions, a collection of her
essays. I hope this information is not _new_ information for anyone on
this list.

I put the subject line in quotes, however, because I wish to use it to
label a narrower but perhaps more important topic: The Woman Question is
the question of the role of women in the anti-capitalist revolutionary
movement. And I want to start out with a flat claim: Unless the
anti-capitalist movment  'solves' this question both in theory and
practice there will be no revolution, there will be no resolution of the
'problem' of global warming, there will be no defeat of imperialism. To
solve that question is to solve the 'problem' of political organization
in our movement. To fail to solve it is to dissovle our movement. No
greater theoretical and practical problem faces us than this. Yet the
movement as a whole as never even soslved the problem of how to keep
discussion of the woman question going on an e-mail list, let alone in
RL.

We are not dealing, then, with just the question of how to 'treat'
women. We are dealing with the fundamental question of how to
contributre to the building of a revolutionary movement in the u.s.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Out of whack (was: Abstract labor)

[Carrol Cox]

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Mark Lause wrote:
> 
> > 
> One of the major problems in our civiliaation at this point--it isn't
> restricted to this list of the movement--is the confusion with online
> communities, email lists, etc., with RL.  Anyone can argue anything anywhere
> they want, including online, but the real test is going to be out there in
> the real world.

I agree with Mark's substantive point here, but I think the stark
opposition of e-lists & RL won't quite hold. "RL" includes a good deal
of gabbling -- even an infantry platoon in combat probably spends more
time talking than they spend pulling the trigger. Some wag in the CIA
suggested the way to defeat the "Viet Cong" was to parachuted down into
their areas mimeograph machines and plenty of paper. They then would
spend so much time propagandizing each other that they would forget to
fight. But of course their military power was grounded primarily in
their talk, not their guns. It _was_, of course, mostly talk tied to
practice, which unfortunately is not and probably cannot be tied to
ongoing practice. But that still doesn't  necessarily cut it off from
RL, for an abstract understanding of the dynamics of capitalism, as well
as an abstract understanding (at a somewhat more concrete level) of the
policies of the core capitalist nations is part of RL, and those issues
_can_ be nibbled at seriously, if not resolved, on an e-list.

I still think, however, that daily current-events simply cluttter the
list, with not conceivable relation even to the events they chronicle.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] BP, Obama and the Economics of Disaster

[Carrol Cox]

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What is the point of this silly fantasizing? If it's supposed to be
entertaining ironmy, I prefer Swift.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Moderator's note

[Carrol Cox]

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Tom Cod wrote:
> 
> 
> Jerry Rubin was a narcissistic asshole, way worse than even Abbie Hoffman.

Even people who had been in jail with Rubin thought he was an asshole.
But part of the complexity of the'60s was precisely the way in which
even the actions of such an asshole were absorbed into the whole.

Abbie Hoffman is another story. One can disagree with him but he was a
serious person.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Moderator's note

[Carrol Cox]

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Mark Lause wrote:
> 
> 
> A single demonstration is a complex thing with many currents.
> Movements are even more so.
> 

Indeed! And evereyone for 40 years have been falling all overe
themselves to simplify and stuff into some formula the whole complexity
of that Movement of Movements we know as The '6-0s. 

Calling it a generational thing was/is one of the grossest of the gross
over-simplifiations of hte period.

Carrol


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[Marxism] Scope and Limits of Theory: Provisional Draft (was Black Bloc, G20, Chicago, etc)

[Carrol Cox]

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{Applogy: Becaus of my fucking eyes I can't even find this book on the
shelf, let alone quote exactly from it. Later I will look up the exact
words and post them.}

In  Revolutionary silhouettes, Lunacharsky makes an interesting
comparison of Lenin & Trotsky.  Lenin, he says, was more "opportunist"
in a special sense, while Trotssky was the more orthodox Marxist. By
"opportunism" he he means readiness to seize the opportunty as one shows
itself, without letting doctrine get in the way.  An incident from WW 2
may illustrate the distinction being made here. When the German
Engineers failed to completely destry the bridge at Remagen (w?) an
opportunity opened up for crossing the Rhine, which ahd to be seized at
once because the damaged bridge might collapse at any time. But this
involved a radical change of plans, including major shifting arund of
troops, etc., and that change in carefully laid plans, some of
Eistenhower's generals believed, would cause too much trouble. They
favored proceeding with original plans  to avoid too much confusion.
Other generals said _seize_ the opportunity, which is what Eisenhower
chose, with a result that very possibly shortened the war and definitely
decreased casualties. This is not a bad illustration of theory versus
concrete analysis of concrete situations.

As a matter of fact, in the past Lou has criticised Trotsky for sending
messages from Mexico dictating daily tactics to his followers in Spain.
But Trotsky was merely being a good orthodox Marxist: he believed there
was a Marxist revolutionary theory and that that theory could dictate
the correct tactics regardless of special local circumstances. Similarly
the 'orthodox' U.S. generals who opposed using the bridge had a
long-established military theory as to the correct way to make an
assault over a river, and their plans had been drawn up accordingly.
Another way of putting this, is that they assumed there to be a direct
relationship between theory and praactice: abstract theory could dictate
detailed tactics in all situatios. (Assuming a direct relation of theory
to practice is, I think, the most useful definition of "dogmatism.")

That is probably true in the more rigorous physical sciences. It is true
for _some_ cooking_: There are many items for which you can go to the
cookbook (theory) and followiing it directly will come out with the same
results everytime. But this is not true, for example, in kneading bread:
there is no way theory (a manual) can dictate to you this process, since
it has to be known in the fingers, so to speak, rather than merely in
the brain. The ability to judge the relevance or irrelevance of theory
(recipes) in various contects is as vital in politics as in cooking!

The spectre that looms over all "Marxist" political theory/thought is,
of course, WITDBD, and WITBD has been seen almost wholly in the light of
one fateful sentence: "There can be no Revolutionary Party withut a
Revolutionary Theory." All varieties of "Leniniism" derive from treating
this ne sentence as Scripture. Though Lenin himself seemed to be able to
proceed quite happily without further recourse to this bit of Scriptural
Wisdom. That is the reason Lenin himself is so superior to the
"Leniniism" created by Stalin and Trotsky. But the if...then of Lenin's
sentence is in fact valid. There can be no Revolutionary Party without a
Revolutinary theory. And since there can be no Revolutionary Theory, it
follows that in fact there can be no Revolutionary Party -- no Vanguard
possessing the scientific truth. And there has been no Revolutionary
Party in history. There have been, and there will be a gain, parties
including many members who, when the revolutionary moment suddenly
emereges will be among the leaders of those who seize the occasion. But
parties can only operate in the concrete context of non-revolutionary
'terrains,' setting themselves, as best as they can various
interferences with the smooth working of capitalist power and capitalist
ideology.

Now, why there can be no revolutionary theory.  Partly this depends on
how narrowly one wishes to use the term "theory."  (Given the limits of
any language including English, one will of curse often have to use a
given word in many contexts where its rigorous sense is irrelevant. That
is a matter of usage.) Here I suggest the word should closely correspond
to its usage in the 'hard' sciences. A Theory of Gravity applies to the
whole universe, regardless of time and place. A social theory, if one
exists, will of course have less reach, but nevertheless ought to hold
over some extensive period of time and across national borders. Kark
Marx's Critique of Political Economy conforms to that requirement:
Focused as it is on an "ideal" capitalism, it applies to _all_
capital

Re: [Marxism] What's new at Links: G20 Toronto, World Cup, Venezuela, Tariq Ali on Afghanistan, revo party, Asia solidarity with Palestine, Thailand book excerpt, People's Climate Agreement

[Carrol Cox]

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"S. Artesian" wrote:
> 
>
> I don't think Marxists should ever, ever buy into the argument about
> violence being the result of demonstrations "provoking" the police.   The
> violence of capitalism is the one and only provocateur here.

I don't think any anti-capitalist, Marxist or not, should ever buy into
that argument.

And the argument that this or that tactci by this or that group
"discredits" us is cretinish. As I said, such actions (inlcuding really
stupid or outrageous ones) are part of the terrain or climate of
struggle. Rather than endless complaint we simply havee to work on
constructing a left that can flourish regardless of what 'frignes' it
has.

But you are absolutely right: The cops are the same, provoked or
unprovoked.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] The third Great Depression

[Carrol Cox]

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Both these e earlier eepressions, of course, led not to socialist
revolution, or even to strong left movements. Rather, both were
essentially processes that led to the renewal of capitalism --
essentially bursts of what we call "imperialism" but which were in any
case expansions of capitalism into new areas of the world. (Two great
revolutions, the Russiand and the Chinesee, occurred in those new areas,
and both (I would say) expanded greatly our sense of human possibility.
But there was never any question, looking backkwared, on either of those
revolutions establsihing socialist regimes. Capitalism was still far too
strong on a global level. Neoliberalism (or "globalism") can be seen,
among other ways, of simply 'completing' the expansion of capitalism
into the whole world that these two revolutions had, in fact, begun.

I am NOT "criticizing" _either_ of those great revolutions. They are
only to be hailed as episodes of human glory. We can learn from them,
not by niggling criticiism of their supposed "errors" but by focusing on
what they did right. No conceivable change of theory or policy on the
part of their leaderscould have built actual socialist regimes in the
20th-c. No one 'beytrayed' them.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Black bloc stupidity

[Carrol Cox]

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I personally view the black bloc (and most anarchists) as a pain in the
ass, and would not be unhappy if someone stuffed them ddown the BP leak.

But I also consider caterwauling about them pointless. They are part of
the terrain. They (or their equivalents) will always be around. (And
also a shrewd remark by Lenin to the effect that anarchists are the
price the working class pays for its sins of opportunism.) Attacking
them and pinning labels on them merely remind me of the Victorian Matron
holding back here skirts in horror as she walks by a prostitute.

Carrol

Louis Proyect wrote:
> 
>
> Well, I pretty much expected this from you.
> 
> However, you should understand that the anarchists who carry out
> black bloc tactics, to formulate this precisely, are hostile to
> Marxism.
> 
> Perhaps you should sort out your ideologies in the not too distant
> future, at least if you are serious about Marxism.
> 
> 
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Re: [Marxism] Regarding the ISO and its (anti) Socialism2010conferences

[Carrol Cox]

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"S. Artesian" wrote:

> ISO isn't going to go along with Angelus' view.  of the
> small Marxist group.

It doesn't matter, under present conditions. The question is not what an
organization thinks it is doing but what, looking back on it, what it is
doing.

("The anatomy of man is a key to the anatomy of the ape.")

For example. All the criticisms everyone has made of the CPUSA from 1936
on are quite accurate. It was sinking deeper and deeper into
opportunism.

But looking back on the period 1945-1960 from the pwerspective of the
explosions of the 1960s, it is clear that CP work during the  preceding
decades were absolutely essential, far more important than the work of
many who had "better theory." The CP's intentions were irrelevant; that
they (and their former members, fronts, etc) kept something alive that
shows in almost all the key events from Montgomery through the March on
Washington and the Berkeley Free Speech Movement is what counts.

The first task of theory is to know the scope and limits of theory in a
given context.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] From a review of Hitchens's memoir

[Carrol Cox]

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Les Schaffer wrote:

 i don't quite see
> why bytes are taken up with this guy. is there some feeling that he is
> single-handedly keeping liberals from becoming more radicalized? if you
> don't think that, then why is this guy worth air time?

That is exactly what I feel in regard to almost all writing focused on
bad individuals: Bush, Obama, Hitchens, Whoever. Most such stuff is
gossip rather than politics. I stopped reading such posts several years
ago, though I d ip into one now and then to refresh my knowledge of the
genre.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Communisation and Value-Form Theory

[Carrol Cox]

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Angelus Novus wrote:
> 
> 
> In other words, you're trying to take an approach to Marx exegesis and make a 
> political tendency out of it.

An anti-capitalist _movement_ cannot be built out of Marx's Critique,
even though I would hope that that critique would be a central concern
of _much_ but not all of the leadership as well as rank and file of such
a movement if it finally comes into existence. That if is a reference to
Rosa Luxemburg, whose phrase "socialism or barbarism" was not merely a
goad to 'get busy' -- it expressed the very real hisotorical possibility
of both, with perhaps barbarism being somewhat more probable. There is
no Angel of History to guaranteee all that is good and beautiful, as the
bourgoeis theory of Progress holds. Lou wants to equate political
practice with fundamental theory, which requires the existence of
something called "Marxism" which is not just a critique of political
economy but a complete philosophy of life, a theory of political action,
and an explanation of all history. 

Lou rejected the Vanguard Party but he has not in practice rejected the
premise of such a party: that there exists a true theory of revolution,
and that that theory can be derived from Marx's criticism of actually
existing capitalism.

For me the power of the critique that Lou regards as "jive" is that it
undergirds a view of anti-capitalist revolution as _necessary_, whether
or not it is either possible or will lead to a desirable world.
Capitalisms broods over human possibility, and it must be destroyed to
make room for humananity -- but that is as far as theory will carry us.
It will not assure us that humanity will make good use of the freedom
thereby achieved or of a method of achieving that destruction.. The
former (a 'good socieity') will be the task of those who come after us.
The latter (the destruction of capitalism) is what we work out in
practice under the conditions in which we find urselves at any given
time. The men and women who accomplish that task (if it is accomplished)
will have many different "world views," some related to "Marx," some
not. Their unity will come throguh their practice, not through their
abstract theory.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Communisation and Value-Form Theory

[Carrol Cox]

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Louis Proyect wrote:
> 
>> What a bunch of jive.
> 
I guess Lou doesn't want to be bothered by any of the questions that
Marx spent his life trying to explore. 

The Absolute Truth Is Known: It consists innothing but mean people
exploiteing brave hard-working people and we've got toget rid of those
bad people.

Sad.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Christian Fascism in the USA?

[Carrol Cox]

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==


Leaving labels out of it, there is a difference between a government
which practices heavy repression within the nominal limits of law
(however twisted) and a government which explicitly rejects legal
limits. It is true that both can kill a lot of people, and it doesn't
make a lot of difference to those killed what the formal context of
their death is.

Nevertheless, resistance to one 'kind' has to be organized rather
differently than to the other 'kind." It is in fac rather important to
most capitalist ruling classes that the framework of law be maintained.
To give up that framework to purelyh arbitrary rule is a rather despeate
recourse. I don't think the u.s. elites (or the u.s. military) is at all
ready to reject that framework.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Marxism or Kautskyism? (was Re: Iran and"anti-imperialism")

[Carrol Cox]

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Leninists have, I think, been unfair to Lenin by turning his texts into
fundamental theory. He really wasn't a theorist, except in an ad hoc way
-- he was a revolutionary. And if you browse throgh his works without
the burden of finding a theory of  revolution but rather the feel or
tone of a man with a single-minded focus on the task ahead -- read him
that way, and begin to see why (despite his many blind disciples) he
looms so long despite all the inadequacy of his "theoretical" texts. He
even tells us that once -- look at the last page of State and
Revolution, the last lines.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Pure idiocy from Katrina vanden Heuvel

[Carrol Cox]

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One more remark. I think Shakespeare is useful here. If you check his
history plays, you will find that the great, powerful diatribes,
masterpieces of name-calling, are always by the losers.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Pure idiocy from Katrina vanden Heuvel

[Carrol Cox]

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Heath Eddy wrote:
>ent
> I would go one step further and say that KvH isn't even thinking about our
> position, much less looking to "defeat" us.  Socialists are considered so
> marginalized in this country that our position is essentially irrelevant to
> most liberals/progressives.

I think I would accept this 'amendment' for the most part. But that
spectre has never _qyite_ ceased  haunting the dreams of liberals. At
our weakest, they still keep half an eye on us. Still, Heath's wording
is I think superior to mine.

Carrol


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[Marxism] Not Only Marxists was Pro-Israel lobbies switch sides

[Carrol Cox]

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Louis Proyect wrote:
> 
> Of course the Green Movement does not call for the overthrow of
> the Green Movement. It is the liberal and loyal opposition. The
> people who do favor revolution are Marxists like us.

This made sense a century ago. But it has become a fundamental political
error to think that only "Marxists" are or can be revolutionaries.
Marxists will remain a crucial but not necessarily dominant element in
future revolutionary struggles, but it is obstructionist to think that
only Marxists are revolutionaries.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Joan Hinton, Physicist Who Chose China Over Atom Bomb, Is Dead at 88

[Carrol Cox]

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Michael Perelman wrote:
> 

> Connection with William Hinton?

Yesss, unless we are mistaken in the following.

We knew her daughter Karen  in the early '80s. She was working on a
Ph.D. in Agriculture at thhe U of I, and reteurned to China. She
identified herself as the neice of William Hinton.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] The FBI knocked on my door

[Carrol Cox]

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We had an ex-FBI agent speak here back in the '80s. He had been assigned
to Peoria, Illinois, and he was supposed to investigate organized crime.
Insrtead they (his superiors) kept urging him to find "terrorists"
inside CISPES! He quit. 

They tried a number of ways of finding "terrorists" in CISPES. It looks
as though the hunt is now on for terrorists in the Anti-Zionist
movement.

Carrol

Greg McDonald wrote:
> 
> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
> 
> On Sun, Jun 13, 2010 at 12:53 PM, Louis Proyect  wrote:
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> 
> >
> > You have to keep in mind that the FBI has not been involved in such
> > sweeps in a long time, as far as I know. My last memory of FBI
> > harassment was in the mid-80s when I was working with CISPES and then a
> > few years later when my own organization Tecnica was a target. Indeed,
> > the overwhelming impression I got from the video was a certain naivety
> > rather than crass stupidity. In the 1960s, when the FBI was going on all
> > 8 cylinders during Cointelpro, there was a lot more knowledge in the
> > movement about how to deal with it. My suggestion to those who care
> > enough about this issue is to post your comments here:
> >
> > http://www.youtube.com/user/SocialJusticeNOW
> 
> Right, but during the CISPES days they were not politely knocking on
> our doors either, they were breaking in and stealing shit. The
> Bastards stole my 35mm Olympus camera, and my really cool camera bag.
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
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Re: [Marxism] The FBI Knocked on my Door

[Carrol Cox]

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"S. Artesian" wrote:
> 
>
> I have that same feeling watching this video...
>

Yes, but you're not honoring my point about people new to politics, and
Lou's point abut it being several decades since the FBI was up to this
sort of thing in a serious way. Give her some slack.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] The FBI Knocked on my Door

[Carrol Cox]

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Joanne Gullion wrote:
> 
> 
> After I watched it I just thought wow, what a brave and resourceful mother 
> she is!


But now that the video is out there, it's important to emphsize for
those new to politics that this sort of "resourveullness" or bravery can
in fact really backfire. See Jim Farmelant's point: answer certain
questions (which only an attorney could clearly identify) and you are
subject to legal pressure to answer more! And that can cause trouble for
other people than yourself. It really is important not to talk to the
FBI or othr cops. You can get yourself hauled before a Grand JUry and 
having to choose between a contempt citaiton and spilling yuur guts out.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] The FBI knocked on my door

[Carrol Cox]

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At first in the '60s some people were too well trained in ordinary
politeness to respond correctly to the FBI. And the FBI deliberately
exploited that kneejerk politeness.

Now again there are many people in the anti-war movement who probably
need to be warned on this point.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] The FBI knocked on my door

[Carrol Cox]

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Louis Proyect wrote:
> 
> Maybe
> it has something to do with its counterattack against the FBI by an
> Austin mother of 5 who video'd the 2 agents asking her about
> anti-Zionist protests becoming violent. I'm removing it until it can be
> seen again.
> 

Sound's interesting, and I gather those who have seen it think it was
well done and she came off well. Clever of her.

BUT -- as a rule, it doesn't pay to be clever with the FBI. The best
response is to order them out of the house. They can make use of clever
repartee with them.

Two agents called on me once -- later I realized they weren't calling on
Carrol Cox, activist; the agents calling had probably never heard of me.
They were calling on Carrol Cox, parent of a daughter who had gone to
Cuba on the Venceremos Brigade. My daughter woke me up one Saturday
mroning, somewhat excitedly. to say two men wanted to speak to me. I had
to piss, she fussed a bit, that made irritared to begin with by the time
I got downstairs. One of them pulls out his ID and said they wanted to
talk to me. I said, "Am I under arrest." He looked a bit puzzled but
said, No. "You may go" I said, and they left. Had I not been rudely
awakened & suffering from morning irritation I might or might not have
acted so simply -- but I really think something like that is the best
respnse to the FBI (or for that matter, local cvops).

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Obama's right-wing school reform

[Carrol Cox]

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It occurss to me that this is a potentially explosive issue. If a
substantial core of teachers & parents seriously launched opposition . .
. . 

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Chinese workers in revolt

[Carrol Cox]

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Gary MacLennan wrote:
> 
> 
> Now that is the limit of my understanding of economics (very easy to
> reach!), but I do understand that increased demand capacity is never simply
> an economic matter.  There is always a political cost to having a working
> class which has enough of the surplus to become confident, cheeky and even
> arrogant.  In other words labour discipline deteriorates as in the glorious
> 1960s in the West.

! So few have this understanding of both the source of the '60s and the
very real glory of that period.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Only worse

[Carrol Cox]

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Mark Lause wrote:
> 
> 
> This is not only not Marxist.  It's pure 100% USDA approved Roswell
> crap...  And handled rather poorly at that.

Conspiracism is an illness which seems incurable. At least I know of no
instances of successful treatment.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Is imperialism a mode of production?

[Carrol Cox]

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Joaquín Bustelo wrote:
> 

> If it is an objection to my using popular language despite its
> imprecision, you should feel free to rewrite my posts with as
> scientifically precise language as you want (but just don't blame me for
> the result).

It's not science we need but minimally accurate history -- and "stole"
is bad history, whether used popularly or technically.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Is imperialism a mode of production?

[Carrol Cox]

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Joaquín Bustelo wrote:
> 
> 
> What it's really about is denying that the United States, Europe and
> Japan are filthy rich because they stole from the nations of Asia,
> Africa and Latin America and are still doing so today.
>
No. Because the capitalists of these imperialist nations were filthy
rich from the exploitation of their own  working calsses they were
_also_ able to steal from the rest of the world. There are
complications, but this rather than moralistic bullshit is where the
analysis has to start. Imperialism (and/or the national policies so
named) has NEVER aided the wroking classes of the imperialist nations.
For the last 40 years in particular U.S. "imperialism" has been the main
source of the steady deterioration of the living standartds of the U.S.
ruling class, as their jobs are bransfrerred to cheap-labor nations, and
that competition used to bully workers into accepting lower wages and
worse working conditions at home.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Fw: why did the soviet union fall?

[Carrol Cox]

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This is the wrong question and can lead to nothing very interesting
other than the rehashing of qurrels silly to begin with.

The serious question is: Why did the Soviet Untion last so remarkably
long?

Carrol


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[Marxism] Footnotes to Party's Role -- 1 "Revolution"

[Carrol Cox]

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References to revolution in this thread, I hope, have reference more
specifically to _insurrection_. "The Revolution " began a couple
centuries ao and will only really get under way after there are
successful seizures of power in a number of major states. But in the
modern state a rather specific description can be given of an
insurrection: It is a demonstration and the soldiers refuse to fire.
That is it. The soldiers refusing to fire on demonstrators has been the
key point in every insurrection beginning with the February revolution
in Russsi and continuing to the present. The first thing DeGaulle did
when he assumed leadership in 1968 was go to NATO headquarters to ask
the generals if he could depend on the troops. He acted accordingly. The
Czech Spring (only crushed by outside intervention) was the same.
Tiannamen Square failed when the soldiers fired. Dditto in Iran in the
demos after the last election. And so forth. And may it be remarked in
passing that unfortunately in France 68 there WAS a singlke hegemonic
party, which did all it could to quiet things down. And don't strt
spouting about "revisionist" parties. Thbat's one of the points about
stable hegmonic parties: they become part of the structure. There are no
Revolutionary Parties; there are only more or less militant reform
parties that CONTAIN members who, at the right time, sometimes
surprising themselves, are revolutionaries. Despite the failure in
France and the outside intervention in Czechoslobakia  in '68 both did
qute well, thank you, without a Party, the one even gainst the Party
(France) to some extent. They show the real possibility of successful 
insurrection and also the condtions of such success and the impossiblity
of  willing/planning it in advance.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] The Party's Role

[Carrol Cox]

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Unity is around issues and responses to them, not aboutformal
organizational affiliation.

At the present time  no issue ignites enough strong response to generate
the kind of public action which itself acts as an attraction to greater
activity. In the '60s those issues were Black Liberation and the war.
Black liberation was strong enough and active enough to enforce a rough
unity around it on any group, from small local discussion groups to
national parties or coalitions) that by the mid '60s _any_ public action
(on whatever issue) or any visible behavior was in fact taken as part of
that movement. Unity was real, not merely nominal or formal agreement on
'ideas.' The anti-war movement profited by this visibility given to all
activity by the force of the Black Liberation Movement. (More on this
below.) And that activity brought results. When a racist windbag from
Illinois, Senator Dirksen, said civil rights was an idea whose time had
come what he _meant_ is, things are getting too disorderly. Unless we
quiet them down it just won't be possible to do business as usual.  But
as is often the case in periods of left upsurge, this granting of
demands was too little, too late, and the movement and other
disturbances only increased in size and militancy, with many offshoots
(such as welfare rights, curriculum change, etc) developing. (Above all,
the Black Panthersd, but I'll deal with that in another post.) The unity
needed was there, with popular force behind it.

Several further questions emerge from the preceding paragraph. The first
concerns the nature of the "ruling class" and the way it responds to
pressure. Most discussions of the Ruling Class focus on the very top of
that class, the one-half of one percent or so that control so much of
the nation's wealth. But throughout the history of class society the
_full_ ruling class runs at about 5% of the population. Rule, after all,
is primarily about keeping the population under control and the surplus
flowing, not just the 'big' decisions of foretign policy or controlling
the financial system.  Hence the importance of local elements (pretty
small potatoes), whose adherence to the fundamental structure and whose
role in maintaining it must be nurtured. Why is it important to kill
Mumua. An op-ed in the WSJ back in the '80s explained: the morale of the
Philadeplphia Police Force, and of course of the local powers in
Philadelphia that control that police force. And while the whole ruling
class can be pretty timid at times, those local levels are especially
so, and quite apt to be freaked out by any disorder. And their feelings
will be made known to central powers. In Bloomington in 1966 or so we
succeeded in observing the letter of the War on Poverty legislation,
electing poor people to run the local organization. As a result the City
Council refused to give their approval and the funds from Washington did
not flow. The Poverty organization had been first begun by a group of
"prominent citizens," not I presume pleased by having it taken out of
their hands. And things like this were happening all over the U.S. Local
distorder even in little burgs such as Bloomington/Normal Illinois. In
1965 or 66 we had also attempted to put a Black Santa in the annual
Christmas Parage, with the result that they had the whole fucking police
department out to block Black  Santa & a 10-year old little blond girl
from entering the parade! That was the last Christmas parade ever held
in Bloomington. That sort of thing filtered up to Congressman & Senators
and various lobbying groups. And that put serious pressure on the
national elites, who had enough on their hands anyhow with those fucking
Vietnamese peasants and two strong nominally socialist states competing
for hegemonoy in the 'third world.' And so forth. And so the whole
structure which had 'ruled' in the U.S. since the end of Reconstrction
began to crumble.  If they numbered 'regimes' the way they do in France
we would now be living in the Third Repbulic.

And if you have the proper criteria for measuring unity, there was as
much unity in the '60s as in any left movement in history, and more
unity than in most. And all not only witout a single hegemoinc party but
I would argue BECAUSE there was no such party. The force of that unity
was such that it was able to transform quite non-political, even
anti-political, events into part of the overall Movement of Movements
that had developed. Those local ruling elites, for example, couldn't
really tell the difference between a small group putting a Black Santa
in the parade on the one hand and kids in the local high school growing
long hair and smokign pot! Those kids had not a single notion of  being
part of an anti-war movement, but the trouble they caused the local
elite

Re: [Marxism] The Party's Role

[Carrol Cox]

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There are two really quite different quetions here being discussed as
though they were one.

Question 1: Would a left organized by a single hegemonic party be
better/

Question 2: Will there ever be a single hegemonic party? That is, does
Question 1 make any sense.

Question 1 doesNOT make any sense. There simply will not be such a
Party, no matter how many leftists think there should be.

It is a uttyer waste of time and intellect to argue over whether a
Single Party is desirable. One might as well argue over whether a candy
mountain in one's backyard is desirable. It is a non-question. 


Multiple centers is like climate and terrain. It is there! Our problem
is not whether it is  desirable or not but how to develop our practice
to fit this social fact. In stead of endlessly moaning the absence of
what will never be leftists need to focus on the reality of multiple
organizations (most of them not parties) and work out ways of dealing 
with that reality.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] The Party's Role

[Carrol Cox]

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Alan Bradley wrote:

> At any major protest demonstration an interested independent participant 
> would possibly see about six socialist groups with their stalls, all trying 
> to convince him or her why they should join their particular organisation.

This is humorous. What Alan describes here is in fact unity -- the kind
of unity one needs. That unity would not only NOT be increased by having
only one socialist party but that would probably be a barriwe ro rhw
uniry of action needed. What's wrong with having six tables? The only
weakness I see in this hypothetical demo is that there are not tables
there from non-socialist groups who agree on the action but have
different final goals. (I'll write on final goals in another post at
some poing.)

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] The Party's Role

[Carrol Cox]

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As I said in my first post, I just want to remark . . . . In other
words, I don't think this is a serious topic, and even if I did I would
not care to argue with a book of quotations.

Much leftist thought now and for some decades has been strongly
influenced by grossd failure to understand or even try to understand
that (nearly worldwide) Movement of Movements which we call "The '60s."
This showed up vividly, for example, in that thread on alleged Panther
"ultra-leftism." Of course those who carried on that movement tended 
also underestimated the magnitude of what they were engaged in.

History never repeats itself, either as farce or tragedy, and the next
upsurge of left activity will be greatly different from the '60s; all we
can know about it is that it will catch us completely by surprise and
will be at an advanced stage before we even clearly recognize that 
something is happening. But we can at least extract from The 60s a
recognition of how much real unity (or, in my preferred term, coherence)
cvan be achieved in political struggle without the benefit of formal
agreement among the forces in movement. That way, at least we will be a
fighting the last war instead of the war before the war before the last
war.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] The Party's Role

[Carrol Cox]

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Carrol Cox wrote:
> 
>I would just like to remark that THE Party as a political
> sstrategy is about as archaic as The British Square as a military
> strategy.
>

Note: I say _archaic_, not wrong. The British Square was a great
military formation in its day. Let us honor all the movements of the
past and their leaders, both the Kautskys and the Luxemburges, the
Leniins and the Maos, the Trotskys & the Stalins. They wrestled with
particular historical conditions at a particular time and place. Thefir
thought and the institutions they and their comrades built were in
response to those condttions. We honor them most not by aping their
so-called "theories"* but by continuing the struggle through analysis
and response to the conditions under which we find ourselves. It just so
happens that the single hegemonic party is an impossiblity in the U.S.
today, and efforts to theorize its 'role' are empty of content.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] The Party's Role

[Carrol Cox]

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I've only browsed in this thread, and read carfully a couple of Mark's
posts. I would just like to remark that THE Party as a political
sstrategy is about as archaic as The British Square as a military
strategy.

Argue all you want that there SHOULD be A Party -- a waste of breath. It
simply won't happen The struggle will be carried on my a miscellandy of
groups, some national, some local, some temporary coalitions, etc.
Debate over THE roee ofTHE Party is simply a mildly amusing joke.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Repo 105

[Carrol Cox]

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Bill Stephens wrote:
> > 
> if so it's a wrong- headed attempt to relegitimize capitalism or at
> the very least it serves to further delegitimize the bankers. the last
> thing these guys need is more understanding among the masses of
> exactly how fraudulent their business practices are. and this is stuff

Except perhaps in some Platonic world of ideal forms, "legitimacy" is
not an objective state of affairs but a matter of consciousness. That
is, the staement, "X delegimizies capitalism" has no material content.
It would have confent if andonly if it translates, "X has led the
working class to consciusly rejevty capitalism." That is obviously not
the case at present. In the  consciusness of U.S. workers capitalism
enjoys a higher and more solid legitimacy than ever before.  Marxists
and other socialist revolutinaries may see it as lacking legitimacy, but
that, to use one of Lenin's favorite cliches, buttyers no  parsnips. It
certainly does not constitute even a tiny step towards revolution.

And Brad is obviously correct. Among left liberals, some of whom might
under some conditions move towards a socialist perspective, explanation
of conditions in terms of bad people constitutes a satisfactory deense
of capitalism.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] '...ists' or '...ites' (Was Conspiracy and History)

[Carrol Cox]

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But beyond the regamarole of the pseudo-theroies (Leninism, Stalinism,
Trotskyism etc) there is a serious matter that gets entirely overlooked
in styupid quarrels over these non-theories. Regardless of the theory or
the leader, millions of people struggled and millions died not for the
theory but for the supposed aim of those theories. We are happy that the
USSR and not Nazi Germany won the war, are we not. We are happy that
Chiang and his descendants don't still keep the Chinese peasantry in the
state once described as standing in water up to one''s nose, on tip-toe,
with every ripple threatening to drown you. We are happy that the Shah
is not still running Iran. We are happy that Venezuela is not a tool of
the U.S. in managing Latin America. Aren't we. And that those struggles
did not result in some exact copy of the Socialism which exits only in
your head doesn't seem ver relevant.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] '...ists' or '...ites' (Was Conspiracy and History)

[Carrol Cox]

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Lenin, of course, was not a Leninist and certainly not a
Marxist-Leninist. Both were toys invented by the Bobsey twins Leon & Joe
in their quarrel over who got the SU to play with.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Avatar

[Carrol Cox]

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Bonnie Weinstein wrote:
> 
> 
> Art must be taken in the form it's created.

True in principle, but if followed rigidly only Greek scholars could
read the greatest of all texts, The Iliad.



Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Thoughts on "terrorism" and decadence [was: The Martyr'swife]

[Carrol Cox]

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Greg McDonald wrote:
> 
> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
> 
> Joaquin Bustelo wrote: 
> 
>  that the extreme decadence, amorality, absence of values and narcissism of
> U.S. society means by and large it can't produce suitable human material for
> this work, because it calls for sacrificing yourself for the greater good.
> But under the simplistic aberration of free market ideology that's become
> the American state religion, there is no greater good than the self.
> 
> Worse, this outlook has led to a situation where the US military and
> intelligence services are themselves extremely vulnerable to penetration,
> because as institutions they have become organically incapable of
> understanding ideologically-motivated opponents.>
> 
> Even worse, the CIA traditionally recruits, as Steven Pisso puts it:
> "nuts, screwballs, crooks, drunks, even the certifiably insane."
> Apparently, it provides good cover, or plausible deniability, to
> recruit nut jobs for undercover work.

(1) American "decadence" (like American "innocence") gets discovered
anew every 25 years or so. "Decadence" is essentially an organic
metaphor (apples rot), and while it has sometimes been relevant to
"traditional" (or tributary) societies ruled by a hereitary class of the
"well born," it is quite irrelevant to capitalism. (That's a long long
argument, I know, and I'll simply throw it out as something to think
about without further defense of it.)

(2) Intelligence services, as long as they have existed, have always
recruited from the dregs or the crzzy. After all, spying and
assassination really are not, and never have been, all that appealing a
way to earn one's daily bread or nightly cocktail.

In its very short lifetime capitalism has already encountered more
disasters and fallen down more holes than half a dozen ancient empires
together, and it always gets up smiling.

If you don't hit it, it won't fall.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Why conservatives hate "Avatar"

[Carrol Cox]

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Mark Lause wrote:
> 
> I'm sure there are people who looked at "Birth of a Nation" as one of the
> many silent-era cowboy movies.  Or "Reds" as a love story.  Just think a
> minute at how differently people perceive a news broadcast.

Indeed. I once had a student inf 18th-c lit who thought "A Modest
Proposal" was evidence that Irish peasantry practiced cannibalism.

In a political context this means that a given text or movie takes on
political significance only within a specific context, which is only
partly created by the viewer's own history. If you bring bourgeois
assumptions to a movie, you will see it supporting those assumptions. If
it clearly does not, then such viewers will dismiss it as propaganda.

No movie has an essential meaning that 'works' on the reader regardless
of context. Or see it as a good movie which has the wrong attitude. 

It all comes back to active political practice. News, movies, even
events do not carry their own meaning.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Why conservatives hate "Avatar"

[Carrol Cox]

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Woodrow Wilson shhowed Birth of a Nation at the White House, and if I
remember correctly he said something to the efrfec that it manifested
central American principles. Now that is The Enemy speaking, and it is
worth while understanding that enemy. Studying the art (the best art) of
any culture, including especially the culture of The Enemy.

You need to attend to my metaphor of The Second American Republic. The
First Republic was a Slave Republic. That was destroyed in the Civil
War, after which their was a brief Interlude while, more or less
seriously, an effort  was made to establish a Second Republic on the
basis of Bourgeois Equality (full citizenship) -- Reconstructioj.
Instead Northern Capitalists and Southern Planters made peace,
establishing a Second Republic on the basis of White Suppremacy, imposed
on the former slaves by the terror of the KKK. A Nation was Born! A New
Nation.

No one put it that way. The equal but separate decision of the Supreme
Court avoided the naked language of the Dred Scott decision. School
children could be taught the Declaration of Independence (All men are
created equal and so forth) and celebrate the Brotherhood of Man with no
sense of contradiction.

North as well as South, but less naked. The summer of 1944 when I was 14
I worked in a grocery store in the tiny village of Sodus, Michigan. It
had a lunchcounter attached. I remember the owner saying to the new
employee something to the effect that if any Blacks  came in, to put too
much pepper on their hamburger. (Berrien County Michigan had a sizeable
Black population, and they would be in the countryside and villages
during the fruit harvesting season.) The N word was used plentifuuly in
my grandfater's home. He was a small fruit farmer and most of his berry
pickers were black. The word was called to my attention by constant
warnings not to use it in the berry-packing shed where the pickers might
overhear it. That bit of hypocrisy was perhaps the main difference
between North and South. 

The scenes of riotous black legislators in Birth of a Nation _also_
appeard in the history books we used in elementary and high school.
Thadeus Stevens was a villain; the Impeachment of Johnson brutish
extremism; Robert E. Lee was a great man. Every year or two Congress
went through the charade of introducing legislation to ban lynching, and
politely allowed the Southern Senators to kill it with a fillibuster.
Part of Americanism like the World Series and Fourth of July fireworks
at the local football field. One Nation, individible, with liberyt and
justice for all. And some day in the distant future when the nation was
"ready" for it Negores would be included, so it was just as if they were
already inlcuded and we didn't have to worry about present reality. Oh
yes, and one of the 'educational' movies shown in my rural elementary
school was a romantic bit of sleaze on Custer's Last Stand. 

Mark Twain had tried his best, and his best was very good, to
'celebrate' that Second Republic in "The United States of LYncherdom"
and "To the Person Sitting in Darkness." I read both of them in grad
school in the late '50s; I though they were wonderful and sort of
preened myself on thinking that. (I had also attacked racism in my
Salutatorian commencement address in Benton Harbor in 1947 -- The Second
American Republic was jammed full of good thoughts.) In 1963, just 18
months before various developments started me on the path to where I am
now politically, talking to anothe member of the English Department at
ISU, I said somethihg profoundly pompous about the growing Black
agitation in the South to the effect that they were morally correct, and
if they kept it up we woudl have to suport them, but they were really
moving too fast. ("How the Progressive Mind Works") 

In other words, intelligent and well-intentoned peopld could life in the
midst of The Second American Reepublic and not see it for what it was.
Richard Wright's _Black Boy_ showed what it was for one individual. But
no one really generalized such things to represent The Soul of America!
It took someone
who not only believed the Myth but really thought it was Good to SHOW
that heart of the Second American Republic. No liberal covering. No
pussy-footing. America had achieved greatness andunity and brotherhood
thorugh the lynching of Black Rapists and driving the Savages from the
hallowed Legislative Halls of the South. All was well and the Presdient
of the United States (a highly intelligent professional historian) could
give his blessing to this celebratin of the Birth of the Nation.

Really, no radical could do as good a job as Griffiths did in showing
America for what it was. He put a plus sign on. We put a minus sign on
it. 

The movements of the '60s did not achieve 

Re: [Marxism] Thoughts on Egypt

[Carrol Cox]

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Richard Levins wrote:
> 
> 
> Life would be so much easier if our side were all honest, courageous, and 
> wise while the enemy were all sleazy,cowardly and stupid. No such luck.
> 
> 

More. Too many radicals cover up the enemy as enemy by seeing it/them as
cowardly, sleazy, and stupid. The Democratic Party IS the Enemy. But
constantly radicals conceal that fact from themselves and others by
calling that party by various names. And I have really been disturbed
during Bush's terms by the attention given to his alleged stupidity. If
nothing were wrong with U.S. politicians but their sleaziness and
stupidigy, we would be living in a relative Eden.

The DP leadership is intelligent, courageous, and principled. Their
principles happen to be those of an aggressive capitalist power. They
support those principles very well.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Why conservatives hate "Avatar"

[Carrol Cox]

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"S. Artesian" wrote:
> 
> 
> I don't assume anything about the intention.  The purpose and theme for
> Birth of the Nation is transparently clear in the movie, in the historical
> context in which it was produced, and in the response it received.
> 
> You're simply denying the concrete history of, in, and around this movie.
> 
Nonsense. I'm insisting that radicals need to _know_ the _meaning_ of
that concrete history. You seem to think it's just a bad cowboy picture.

You pay no attention to the title. amd title and the 100 years of horror
implicit in that title.

The part of my post that Lou called silly was written partly with tongue
in cheek, but this response to it suggets that I was right. Too many
radicals want nothing from art but a soothing of their own feelings.
They don't want knowledge.

Why do you think Marx admired Balzac?

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Why conservatives hate "Avatar"

[Carrol Cox]

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"S. Artesian" wrote:
> 
> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
> 
> Huh?  Are we talking about D.W. Griffith's "Birth of A Nation"?  Or is there
> some other Birth of A Nation out there that doesn't glorify the KKK riding
> to the resuce of white womanhood?  Carrol's take is like saying Woodrow
> Wilson did the most for world peace by exposing the hypocrisy of capitalist
> "isolationism."Or that Teddy Roosevelt did so much for the equality of
> races by actually going on safari in Africa.

Wilson and TR were agents of an imperialist state, _acting_ to serve
that state. We are talking about aninanimate object, which cannot speak
for itself or act for itself. The viewer, on her own, or with guidance
fromothers, determines how that object is used in the world.

Birth of a Nation was actually USED by civil-rights activists to clarify
for selected audiences the illumination of the enemy which, given the
right perspective,  it makes visible.

The viewer needs to get that 'proper perspective' from elsewhere, from
political practice. You can't react  to art passively and expect to get
anything useful from it.

The Battleship Potemkin (influenced, incidentally, by Birth of a Nation)
could easily be used, in the right context, for reactionary purposes.

You fetishize artworks if you assume that their intention works
automatically.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Manure

[Carrol Cox]

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Tom Cod wrote:
>
> I mean, we could
> survive the end of computers, but the failure of harvests would be a lot
> harder to cope with.

A plow, a rake, a stone pestle for grinding grain are as necessary as
the grain. And even the neolithic versions of those were as much part of
industry as are computers.

The technology that makes farming possible has to be degveloped BEFORE
farming can develop.

In any case, the very first 'products' of farming were plague,
starvation, social hierarchies, and oppression. Oh yes, and it brought
severe arthritis to the women of the early neolithic period in the
Middle East. It took most of the day to grind the grain for that
evening's meal, and that labor required knealing.

This attempt to rank what is crucial and what is not is a bum's game. It
tells us nothing about human social relations.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] ReSocialism and the defense of public education: Shift toHealth

[Carrol Cox]

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hari kumar wrote:
> Would someone (preferably at least one of the more dogmatic people here who
> insist that there is no value *at all* in the bill) explain to me what
> reforms are "acceptable" and what ones are not?

That is our hope -- tht it will be  of no value at all. The danger is
that it will do significant damage to health care. Among other things it
may be a cover for cutting the benefits of those retirees who,
presently, have insurance provided by their employer. States are
exploritg all possibilities for destroyign the retirement benefits of
retired teachers both in K-12 and universies.

That said, may I note that what radicals, marxist or otherwise, think of
this bill is utterly irrelevant to anything. The bill's chances are not
improved by the support of radicals, and it is not threatened by
opposition from radicals. Refere nes to "The Left" in the United states
are references to a non-existent entity. There are 10s of thousands (or
more) of individual leftists but no coherent left that can have any
impact on public affairs.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] What if the Sun does not rise?

[Carrol Cox]

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Nestor Gorojovsky wrote: [clip]

Perhaps this is relevant. A U.S. colonel visited in Vietnam back in the
'80s and conversed with one of the NVA officers. "You know," he said,
"that you never defeated us in direct combat." "Yes," his Vietnam
counterpart said, "That is true. It is also irrelevant."

Any guerilla campaign (or war of natioanl liberation) can be defeated by
killing enough people. That has been demonstrated over and over again.
The question is always a political not a miltary one. Can the necessry
killing be protected politically. 

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Accepting peace prize, Obama makes case for unending war

[Carrol Cox]

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Gary MacLennan wrote:
> 
> ==
>> But of course it is not the mess that the Allies have created which will
> lead to a withdrawal.  It will require military setbacks on the ground and a
> brave peace movement to make the Nobel Laureate rethink his windy rhetoric
> on the "just" war.
> 
>

1) There is little evidence at the present time that a significant
anti-war movement  can be generated in the United States. Casualties are
low, there is no draft, and above all there is no contemporary movement
of the immense drive of the Black Liberation MOvement to inspire all
other movements of the '60s, preeminently the anti-war movement.

2) There is little evidence that a guerilla war not supported by some
external power (U.S. in the Agghan resistance to the SU; SU & China in
the Vietamese resistance to the U.S.). One merely needs to kill enough
people and keep at it long enough. The U.S. (with Obama or anyone else
as President) is surely willing and able to kill endlessly.

Carrol


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Re: [Marxism] Fred Hampton

[Carrol Cox]

Again, I am behind on reading posts, having been in Amherst since
Thursday, and probably won't catch up. Apologies if this repeats points
already made.

Fred Hampton spent the last few months of his life going from Black high
school to Black high school -- and what was he telling them: he was
condemning the Wetherman tendency.  That repeated polemic against the
Weatherman, delivered to Black high school students, catches up THE
chief contribution of the Black Panther Party: The need for the
development of a complex political movement that linked Black and white
revolulutionary organizations int a commone struggle to break the
barrier to class unity represented by racism (structural and
ideologoical). The Weatherman tendency grew from a repudiation of that
as a possible political goal, since white workers were so deeply racist
that no change was possible on their part. (As one of them once argued
with me, socialism in the United States would probably require somethng
like a lenghy occupation of the U.S. by the PLA. The Weather loons
really were loons.*) The Panther Pary rejected this, and constantly
looked for white/Black cooperation. Panthers came over to
Bloomington(Illinois) from Peoria, for example, to cooperate with the
ISU SDS chapter in attempting to recruit ISU students to participate in
the RYM2 October 1969 demonstrations in Chicago. Fred Hampton himself
spoke at ISU only a couple weeks before his murder.

I do not think the specific errors made by any political grouping of the
past are of any interest (other than antiquarian) whatever. Errors are
repeated, but never in any form that is a recognizable repetitionof the
same error in earlier peiods. Criticism of the Weatherman tendency, for
example, will do nothing whatever to protect against the identical error
in the fture, since those who will make that error will be convinced
that they are entirely different from the Weatherman tendency. My
remarks above on Eatherman are meant to help clarify a political
principle that still holds: that "black-white" unity (or cooperation)
can coame aboaut _only_ through the leadership of Black revolutionary
forces. Weatherman terrorism is a triviality; their rejection of this
principle was profound, and this principle still holds today.

Carrol



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Re: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party

[Carrol Cox]

Tom Cod quotes:

> > From: bia...@embarqmail.com
> > Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 14:14:28 -0500
> >
> > However, at the
> > time that Trotsky proposed it, Stalinism was not only a mass movement in the
> > working class throughout the world, it was capable of any kind of crime
> > imaginable. The Spanish Civil War, for example, [clip]

I may have made this point before, but it is still, I think, relevant.
Those who raise questions concerning the errors or crimes of the
"stalinists" really should feel obliged to develop in some detail their
position on the struggles of the Guelfphs and Ghibelines, and in the
process elaborate a critique of Dante's position on this struggle.

Carrol



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Re: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party

[Carrol Cox]

I believe I posted to this effect a few months ago.

Lefto opportunism or Ultra-Left is characterized by an overestimation of
the strength of capital, an under-estimation of the strength of the
working class. Using this description, I see the most destructive
ultra-leftism of the '60s to have been the SWP policy of "single-issue"
demonstrations. The grounds for this, whatever fake grounds the SWP used
to defend it, was the principle that capitalist culture/ideology was so
overwhelmingly powerful that workers could escape it only if their
political education was kept under the close control of the Party which
was in possession of the only correct theory of proletarian ideology and
of correct revolutionary theory. Luckily this policy failed completely
of its purpose, and thousands, tens of thousands, of workers (the
students were part of the working class) were able to engage in thought
and practice through which they developed a far richer political culture
than did so many of those who were under the thumb of SWP ideolgoues.

Of all the barriers to working-class unity, that of the physical
separation of black and white workers by racially segregated housing is
perhaps the greatest. A working-class movement of even minimal chances
of breaking this barrier is a movement the revolutionary leadership of
which has a strong base in the Black Community, but which _also_
recognizes the essential political task of organizing black-white unity.
The only political organizatin in the '60s that fully realized this task
was The Black Panthers. 

History never repeats itself, and the only lesson it teaches is the
lesson that nothing is to be learned from it. (Historical Thinking in
Marxist terms invlveds "reading histoyr backwards" (Ollman's phrase), as
imaged in Marx's obsrvation in the Grundrisse that "The anatomy of man
is a key to the anatomy of the ape." It is NOT true that starting with
the anatomy of the ape one has any information whatever on the anatomy
of man.) Most efforts to "earn from history" fail to do history
backwards, and therefore blunder seriously.

So the particular practice and theory of the Panthers will never be
relevant again. But there general example, viewed from the needs of the
present, is essential to intelligent left thinking.

Carrol



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Re: [Marxism] Paul LeBlanc: Why I Am Joining the ISO

[Carrol Cox]

Shane Mage wrote:
> 
> On Oct 30, 2009, at 2:33 PM, S. Artesian wrote:
> 
> > I don't know about FTROP [ok, Shane, don't get your knickers in a
> > twist] as
> > metaphor...
> 
> Marx was very explicit that this *tendency* was no metaphor but was
> and is a basic law of motion of the capitalist mode of production.
>

I think acronymbs must be neurologically related to proper names in
general. About 12 yars ago I started having serious problems in
retrieving proper names from memory -- dramatically driven home to me
when, about 10 years ago, I was about to mention [damn -- I did itagain
-- ah, Edmund Burke in a post & had to check an anthology contents to
recall his name: and I've TAUGHT Burke in a course. Anyhow, when I wrote
that post I couldn't quite retrieve the the correct acronym so I wrote
FROP fully confident that anyone on a Marxist list would know it was a
TENDENCY TO, and would also know that I knew. So as S. said, don't get
your knickers in a twist.

In fact the whole of Capital could have tendency placed before it, since
Marx does not discuss any actual capitalist economy but only its
tendency towaard a state it can never acvhieve in actuality. Recognition
of that is part, incidentally, of the reason to emphasize contingency in
attempting to understand any actual historical state of affairs
(including the present and future), since that is always disrupting the
nature of any "laws" of motion one can find in 'pure' capitalism

In other words, Marx does not gie an  empiracl account of capitalism.
That was Stan Goff's understanding of Marx, and when he found a
disconnect between Marx as he understood him and empirical reality, he
rejectee Marxism.

Carrol
Carrol



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Re: [Marxism] Paul LeBlanc: Why I Am Joining the ISO

[Carrol Cox]

"S. Artesian" wrote:
> 
>
> Can you give some examples of the grimness of this "hold," since Marx in Vol
> 3 of Capital, his Critique of Political Economy, refers, explains the law of
> the FROP?  Can you give an example of some huge fantasies posted to this
> list that are little better than establishment in understanding current
> conditions by those who grimly accept the FROP as an economic law?


I am not really interested, on the whole, in debating details of
Marxology. I am interested only in noting for othrs to consider or
ignore as they please, the _existnce_ of a number of distinct
traditions  in the hisotyr of "Marxism." One of those traditions (or
actually several different ones) holds that Marx established a science
of economics. I do not believe that there exists such a science. I am
not alone on this, and you can read such writers as Moishe Postone or
Robert Albritton and get at least an introduction to a couple of those
alternative views.

On the subjeft of "science" and Marx, I have been told though have not
yet read myself that there is a very good account of the meaning of
_wissenschaf_ (sp?) in Germany at the time Marx was writing in Daniel
Bensaid's book _A Marx for Our Times_. I plan to read it when I can
arrange to do so (I'll probably have to pay someone to read it to me.
Complex texts don't 'work' when magnified so the text runs off the
screen.

But political conclusions such as mine do not depend on a given reading
of Marx, but they do depend on rejection of the assumption that
"Marxism" provides the basis for a "Theory of Revolution." The role of
contingency in political affairs is too great to allow a general
understanding of revolution that goes beyond a few rough rules of thumb.
Beyond that each revolution requires the working out of thought specific
to that time and place. I have been particularly irritated with the
countless "critiques" of revolutions in Cuba, Venezeuala, Bolivia, and
any other one you can name. There exists no platform, not applicable set
of principles, which justify those critiques.

Carrol



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Re: [Marxism] An interesting take on Robert Burns

[Carrol Cox]

You should read some of his obscene verse also. One I vaguely remembver,
celebrates the fact that what unites king & peasant is that they both
"fou fou fou."

Carrol



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Re: [Marxism] Can Obama actually be stupid?

[Carrol Cox]

Mark Lause wrote:
> 
> I find these kinds of discussions curious.  You can't understand Obama
> without understanding Chicago politics.

I find it more than curious. I find it reactionary. One of the more
harmful mistakes leftists have made the last 8 years is mocking Bush as
a person.

Bush was neither stupid nor evil. He simply disagreed with us and
supported (sincerely) institutions that we must try to destroy.

But those institutions (including capitalism itself) are neither evil
nor stupid; they are history. And we must destroy them.

Carrol



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[Marxism] Residents -- not citizens -- are what count for us

[Carrol Cox]

Mark Lause wrote:
> 
> I agree that the way this question is formulated it restricts its
> concerns to "citizens"--which, through much of history, means almost
> only white and only men--which minimizes the answers in many ways.
> 

Even if we can't maintain the old slogan, Workers have no country, we
can at least refrain in our language from the glorification of
"citizens" as opposed to _residents_. Our constituency is all residents
of the U.S. and the legal matter of ciizizenship is irrelevant. Don't
even use the word. Use "residents" instead even in casual conversation.

Open Borders!

A left that can't maintain that slogan isn't a left -- it's a bunch of
do-gooders.

Carrol



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Re: [Marxism] Long posts not allowed??

[Carrol Cox]

Mark Lause wrote:
> 
> Les offers a telling comment on the potential value of the list for
> discussion...as opposed to the mere forwarding of electronic
> "clippings."

Indeed.

Becauxe my vision has been ravaged with macular degeneration, in order
to read posts I have to copy them to a word file, format them in clearly
demarcated paragraphs, all extraneous matter removed, and set in a large
font. Even after this massaging of text, I read so slowly (focus on what
the letters are interferes with focus on wht the fuck is being said)
that any reasonably dense text will force me to reread it several times
before making sense of it. Hence I am forced radically to limit the
number of posts I read each day - especially since almost the only posts
I'm interested in reading are apt to be densely written.

I practically stopped reading marxmail late last year when the
overwhelming concern seemed to be to prove that the economy was in a bad
shape and getting worse. Big fucking deal - since none of those posts
ever bothered even to hint that perhaps we should ask Lenin's question
(even if we didn't accept his answers, which fit 1905): WITBD.

The absence of interest in this question; in fact the absence any hing
that the question existed, pretty much convinced me that the list was
only concerned with daily movement for its own sake (a la bernstein),
with hopes for the future occasionally thrown in for decoration.

(Incidentally, it has been shown over and over again for two centuries
that economic misery, or almost any kind of misery, NEVER provokes
resistance. And when it does, that resistance is merely of the
nickel&dime variety, mainly pleading with the capitalists to toss a few
more crumbs to the starving masses.

Fuck That.

It seems to me that the two most imporatant texts for today from
"classical marxism" are the two speeches by Rosa Luxemburge at the
Stuttgart  Conference of the SPD.  Endless bits of daily news, economic
news, latest reviews of the drama staged by the rulng class for the
drama-hungry masses (What is Obama up to now? Aint' he a terrible
fellow.Shit), invocations to have the right feelings (since our action
here would be empty) on what the Iranians are up to. That stuff probably
bores even most  avid raders of the Nation.

WITBD!! 

Carrol



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Re: [Marxism] Race and Class Struggle in the US

[Carrol Cox]

Barbara Jeanne Fields, "Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States
of America," New Left Review, May/June 1990.

ICarrol



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Re: [Marxism] Words (was 'Alexander Cockburn RIP')

[Carrol Cox]

waistli...@aol.com wrote:
> 
> >> Actually, Max Schactm

Who the hell are you quoting?

Carrol



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Re: [Marxism] Alexander Cockburn RIP

[Carrol Cox]

Thanks. He's done some other creepy things in the past -- and he never
wa, on most things, all that powerful an analyst: just a good
journalist. We may continue toget that from him, but ...?

Carrol

Louis Proyect wrote:
> 
> 
> Cockburn's column last Saturday on Counterpunch identified the increase
> in abortions since Roe v. Wade with eugenics, citing a right to life
> activist.
> 
> Here is the link to his article:
> http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08142009.html
>



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Re: [Marxism] Another forward from Rosa L. - Analytic Marxsim

[Carrol Cox]

midhurs...@aol.com wrote:
> 
> Dialectical Materialism is a method of thinking
> That every event is connected

This is idealism (or simple-minded Hegelianism). Capitalism _tends_
towards being a totality, and to that extent is subject to dialectical
analysis.

But history as a whole is probably _not_ dialectical. Contingency
remains an ultimate power.

Read Gould on evolution and the importance there of contingency.

Orgasms are (or are close to being) totalities, and to that extent
subject todialectical understanding.

An understanding of continggency was behind Rosa Luxemburg's phrase
"socialism or barbarism." She understood that nothign was certain in
human affairs and that barbarissm was a real possibility,

Carrol



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