The bridge is on fire, *no matter where I've been* (anti-Leninist Socialism as *social critique*)
Big Red Jeff Rubard
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Those of you "on various scenes" may have noticed, to your chagrin or
amazement *or maybe both*, that tho' certain espousals of Marxist
socialist doctrines fall, well, "beyond the pale" -- a hearty
enthusiasm for "comrade Lenin" as a fellow well met, roughly, is
something one encounters. Without going into the details of Lenin's
'all-weather' contribution to *Staatslehre*, let me say
*unequivocally* and out of my *roughly* fifteen years' experience as a
political activist that *moderne* Leninism is 'all wet' and no good
for anyone living; lest you forget that various *legendes* who took
various falls *in fact existed* and their "contributions to
philosophy" took various and variously horrifying forms, go right
ahead and peer into his many *uniform* volumes, but consider *very
seriously* that in this *post-WWI*, *post-Communist* era neither the
*very rigid* European-socialist ideas Lenin was rebelling against nor
the *natural* approach to social revolutionism of the Bolsheviks
*holds water*.
Instead, the only choice is a rather less lovely one, incl. for "music-
makers and dreamers of dreams"; when one's social clout is not
imagined and, shall we say, rather less than *total* the choice
remains -- as it was a decade ago, when I was "The Socialist
International's man in Portland" and told everybody to shut-up-now
about what the Democrats plus unionists *couldn't* bring them -- a
rather bold and *effusive*, one might even say "invasive", form of
'questioning the proprieties' of social dances that don't seem to "go
down" just right. The operative figures from out of socialist history
for such an "operation" are *all of 'em*, Leon Trotsky very much
included, but there is no choosing between *the devil you know* and
the devils they knew *you stipulatively don't*, by the force of time
and societal change and you *not* being -- cough, cough -- a "great"
man. Mix it up, with problems not of your making but *possibly of some
solving* with a little bit of sense that the only thing to be
subtracted is, well, the squeal of cruelty or thoughtlessness
regarding an *uneconomic* and inhumane state of affairs.
Begin, as usual, by being a "fool" and proceed stepwise to the nearest
'main chance', or something like it; and never forget that whatever
one's *conatus*, it is *icons* of another time or era or *social
group* you end up invoking to price -- what? [*Doesna sound good, huh?
*]
Jeff Rubard