The March of Imperialism
Hunter H. Watson
United States/Asia
Date:
Wed, 5 May 1999 21:00:51 -0500 (CDT)
From:
"al...@stratfor.com" <al...@stratfor.com>
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reda...@stratfor.com
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STRATFOR's
Global Intelligence Update
May 6, 1999
WTO Deadlock Emphasizes Widening U.S.-Asia Split
Summary:
The debate over who will be the next World Trade Organization
(WTO) Director-General has further divided Asia from the United
States, and brought accusations of the U.S. turning the WTO into
a rich man's club. At the same time, the U.S. is threatening
trade investigations and actions against several Asian nations,
including Japan and South Korea. The U.S. international economic
policy remains inwardly focused on appeasing domestic lobbies,
while at the same time its foreign policy continues to pursue the
role of geopolitical leader. These contrasting international
policies are proving counterproductive to developing positive
relations with Asian nations, and may contribute to the further
regionalization of Asia's economy, rather than U.S.-preferred
globalization.
Analysis:
The decision-making process for choosing the next World Trade
Organization (WTO) Director-General that has been going on for
months, has come down to two candidates: Thai Deputy Prime
Minister Supachai Panitchpakdi and former New Zealand Prime
Minister Mike Moore. Despite the fact that the former WTO head
Renato Ruggiero stepped down on April 30, the decision to replace
him has already been postponed several times. Not only has no
clear consensus emerged, but also there is an increased potential
for the organization to halt operations temporarily. Europe and
Africa are both divided between the two candidates, although
Europe is leaning toward Moore. Supachai has the backing of Asia
and the Middle East, while Moore has the support of North and
South America, with the United States leading the coalition in
his favor.
The U.S. decision to back Moore formally was greeted with
disappointment by Thailand, which has been emerging, with U.S.
patronage, as a model of economic reform for Asia. Thailand's
disappointment has now turned to anger, as it accuses the U.S. of
stalling the decision-making process to pull support away from
Supachai. The United States' refusal to back Supachai has raised
alarms and accusations from other Asian nations that the U.S. is
splitting the WTO along economic and regional borders,
threatening the efficacy of the organization in the future. The
Executive Director of the Malaysian Institute of Economic
Research, Mohamed Ariff, has said, "This is most unfortunate; it
looks like a North-South divide. By and large developing
countries think that many of these international organizations
have been dominated by the North." He further warned that a
failure to accept Supachai as the next WTO Director-General could
lead less developed nations to be unenthusiastic in implementing
WTO policies and decisions.
In Thailand, Senate Speaker Meechai Ruchupan has taken a stronger
stance, saying, "The lesson of the WTO selection is that it's
time we reviewed our foreign policy with all countries,
especially the U.S. We have to see who are our real friends and
who are our enemies." Thai Foreign Ministry Spokesman Don
Pramudwinai has cautioned that "If the selection of the Director-
General becomes an increasingly ugly process then the people
concerned have to bear the blame." Don further warned, "We feel
that everyone is starting to have a lack of confidence in the WTO
procedures."
On May 3 at a special meeting of WTO officials, which lasted well
into the night, Ali Mchumo, the Tanzanian ambassador who chairs
the decision-making general council of the WTO, asserted that
Panitchpakdi Supachai is no longer a viable candidate for the
post of director general of the World Trade Organization. "As
far as the process of identifying the most acceptable candidate
is concerned, the process is over for Dr Supachai," he said.
Diplomats said Mchumo's comment elicited surprise from the
delegates attending the meeting. The camp favoring Supachai
immediately fought back with delegates abandoning procedure by
arguing out loud their case. "Mchumo's getting a clear answer
that Supachai is not dead," said the Malaysian delegate, speaking
on behalf of the Association of Southeast Asian countries. "Any
attempt to impose a decision on the WTO membership could divide
us and, as a consequence, gravely impair not only our
preparations for (the upcoming ministerial meeting in) Seattle
but the entire organization itself." The meeting deteriorated to
such an extent that Mchumo was ultimately forced to recant his
statement before the evening session convened.
However, at approximately the same time as the U.S. was
confronting Asia over the head of the WTO, it issued several
warnings to Asian nations at the end of last week over their
trade practices and potential WTO actions regarding them. The
U.S. cited the controversial Super 301 trade act and the Title
VII Buy American law, thereby warning South Korea, Japan, India,
Hong Kong, and Taiwan of potential investigations or, in some
cases, WTO actions over unfair trade practices. China, on the
other hand, was congratulated for implementing "a functioning
system capable of protecting intellectual property rights,"
particularly in the field of optical media. This U.S. trade
stance has put many Asian nations on the defensive, causing anti-
U.S. sentiments to rise within these countries.
Concurrent with its domestically focused economic foreign policy
(which is being implemented not only vis-a-vis Asia but also
Europe, and elsewhere as well), the U.S. has been attempting to
strengthen its role as the geopolitical global leader. These two
competing goals are working against each other and, so far, the
U.S. has failed to realize either one. As it tries to build
international coalitions and increase its influence over world
events, it is at the same time degrading these relationships with
economic policies bordering on all out protectionism. What the
United States seems to have forgotten is that political gratitude
is often secured by economic generosity. Given NATO's actions in
Yugoslavia, the U.S. and Europe are maintaining only a tenuous
hold on international cooperation as they seek to avoid the
embarrassment of defeat; however, Asia has no such overriding
reason to maintain strong cooperation with the U.S. Once the war
in Yugoslavia ends, U.S. economic policies may again lead to
increased antagonism with Europe and we may very well see the
same patterns as those in Asia emerging.
The economic principles being implemented by the U.S. in Asia,
including its decision not to back Supachai, are becoming
counterproductive to positive U.S.-Asian relations. Only a few
months ago, Thailand was showing signs of becoming a close ally
and useful associate of the U.S. in promoting its international
policy in Southeast Asia. Now it is facing a rise in anti-
American sentiments in government circles, while its labor
unions, angry at the IMF-proscribed economic reforms, are lashing
out at the West in general. Even China, after having been
carefully courted to induce economic cooperation, is growing
increasingly concerned by changing U.S. military ties with Japan
and the Philippines, while the Philippines accuses the U.S. of
preferring trade with China over regional security and stability.
This tangle will not be easily undone, particularly given the
current distractions in Southern Europe.
What has become increasingly apparent is that the Asian powers
are expressing, ever more vocally, their antagonism over the U.S.
backing of Moore for the WTO post, over the U.S. threatening
trade sanctions while these countries are in the throes of an
economic downturn, and over IMF-imposed reforms. These issues
may ultimately undermine U.S. policy in that they may push Asia
toward a closed regional economic grouping, over which it may
exercise even less influence.
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Captain Schwingg
Pardon my ignorance, but who or what is "Stratfor"? These reports remind me
a little of those of the Economist Intelligence Unit in Britain, which are
typically very well researched and most useful. Keep up the good work,
Hunter, ahem!
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Hunter H. Watson
Captain Schwingg wrote:
> In article <37318972...@portup.com>,
> hwa...@portup.com wrote:
> >
> > STRATFOR's
> > Global Intelligence Update
>
> Pardon my ignorance, but who or what is "Stratfor"? These reports remind me
> a little of those of the Economist Intelligence Unit in Britain, which are
> typically very well researched and most useful. Keep up the good work,
> Hunter, ahem!
Stratfor is a foreign policy think tank for hire in Texas. It has a slick and
interesting web site and will send you the weekly updates free by e-mail.
Apparently the free service is indefinite in duration. I'm still getting them
after two months or so.
Stratfor seems determinedly fresh and irreverent. It's the kind of stuff
foreign policy junkeys like. Unfortunately these reports are bait for
subscriptions to more complex and specialized reportage which costs big bucks,
like $1,000 a year.
As to your Economist, politics aside, I'd vote it the world's best weekly news
magazine. Does its Intelligence Unit give out free e-mail samples too?
H.W.
rabhegmarlen
Hunter H. Watson wrote in message
>
>As to your Economist, politics aside, I'd vote it the world's best weekly
news
>magazine. Does its Intelligence Unit give out free e-mail samples too?
>
have suited you Watson? You surprise me. However, it seems a little
misnamed to me these days.
rab
Hunter H. Watson
rabhegmarlen wrote:
You guys badly want to see me as a conservative. My history is that of a
liberal activist. We have always been sensitive to questions of civil
liberties. We have always detested dictatorship, promoted democratic
institutions and absolutely rejected totalitarianism. In my case to this is
added a life long interest in 19th and 20th Century Russia. That has added
something to the intensity of my belief in liberal institutions. You are the
beneficiaries.
The Economist still contains more economic stuff than I am interested in but
the quality of its reportage is unsurpassed. BTW I've listened to the BBC on
a nightly basis for over 30 years. Did you know you can get the latest news
summaries at will with "Real Player"? Just hit the little icon on the screen
and that wonderfully familiar BBC theme comes right on.
One last thing about British journalism. The Imperial history affects the
shape of coverage. Our papers have almost no routine coverage of African
politics, for example. You used to own Africa. You seem still interested. We
didn't. We aren't.
Best,
Hunter
Dave Callaghan
<hwa...@portup.com> writes
I seem to recall you owned quite a few Africans though, and your avowed
disinterest in their place of origin is highly significant.
--
Dave Callaghan
Captain Schwingg
hwa...@portup.com wrote:
>
> You guys badly want to see me as a conservative. My history is that
> of a liberal activist.
Cf. Watson's comments about how the bombing of Serbia will continue
until Clinton's demands are met, and how he has sympathy with a
republican senator who demand a Tinanmen Square-style crackdown against
anti-NATO protesters. All a long way from the sixties and the anti-
Vietnam movement, isn't it? Presumably what Watson means is that his
"liberal activist" days are very much in the past? Perhaps he's
holding out for a medal, or at least a chocolate biscuit, in
recognition of the grave sacrifices he made in the cause of peace.
It's not his fault that his draft card, unlike so many others, was
fireproof.
> We have always been sensitive to questions of civil
> liberties. We have always detested dictatorship, promoted democratic
> institutions and absolutely rejected totalitarianism.
Indeed, it's because of these passionately-held beliefs that Watson
suggested that the documentary film "The Maltese Double Cross" might be
"defamatory" and hence the FBI could justifiably prevent TV audiences
from seeing it.
> In my case to this is added a life long interest in 19th and 20th
> Century Russia. That has added something to the intensity of my
> belief in liberal institutions.
How true that is. Watson has consistently decried the Russian
revolution as a disaster, no doubt because his "interest in 19th ...
century Russia" and his "belief in liberal institutions" has led him to
admiriation for the Tsar and his Okhrana.
> The Economist still contains more economic stuff than I am interested
> in but the quality of its reportage is unsurpassed. BTW I've listened
> to the BBC on a nightly basis for over 30 years.
I may be wrong, but isn't anglophilia rather typical amongst American
elitists of the old school?
--== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---
Hunter H. Watson
Captain Schwingg wrote:
> In article <3732E4ED...@portup.com>,
> hwa...@portup.com wrote:
> >
> > You guys badly want to see me as a conservative. My history is that
> > of a liberal activist.
>
> Cf. Watson's comments about how the bombing of Serbia will continue
> until Clinton's demands are met, and how he has sympathy with a
> republican senator who demand a Tinanmen Square-style crackdown against
> anti-NATO protesters.
I should conclude that a particular thing a Senator says is beyond the
pale simply because he is Republican? I can understand that as a
totalitarian attitude generally but we democrats don't buy it.
> All a long way from the sixties and the anti-
> Vietnam movement, isn't it?
Yes, those were my green and salad days, but remember, the activism then
was by no means limited to anti-war efforts. We were interested in far
more: voting rights and civil liberties, school integration, affirmative
action, anti-death penalty work, nuclear power, pesticides, endangered
species, timber practices---and pulp mills to name a few.
> Presumably what Watson means is that his
> "liberal activist" days are very much in the past?
Not quite. I don't know whether you consider environmental work for public
interest groups "liberal activism". Most right-wingers around here think
so. I agree with them. I finished a Memorandum this last weekend on the
feasibility of suing the State government on a major issue relating to
endangered species protection. If the decision is to go ahead I will gift
a very substantial amount of professional time to the effort. It will
involve preparing and trying a complex, hotly contested, high stakes
litigation in a venue 500 miles away from my office. Have you ever done
something in a liberal cause equivalent to that? Anything? I'm curious as
to whether you are much but talk. Tell us something about your
accomplishments in liberal causes, Justin. Something concrete.
> Perhaps he's
> holding out for a medal, or at least a chocolate biscuit, in
> recognition of the grave sacrifices he made in the cause of peace.
> It's not his fault that his draft card, unlike so many others, was
> fireproof.
A chocolate biscuit? Well, maybe that. I'll leave the medals to Russians.
They love them.
> > We have always been sensitive to questions of civil
> > liberties. We have always detested dictatorship, promoted democratic
> > institutions and absolutely rejected totalitarianism.
>
> Indeed, it's because of these passionately-held beliefs that Watson
> suggested that the documentary film "The Maltese Double Cross" might be
> "defamatory" and hence the FBI could justifiably prevent TV audiences
> from seeing it.
What's this business about the FBI "preventing" audiences from seeing it?
If they were involved in that sort of thing I'll be on the barricades.
Censorship is one of our old fashioned liberal bogeymen. Bitching about
the film and trying to convince others to boycott it is another thing---a
sacred right.
> > In my case to this is added a life long interest in 19th and 20th
> > Century Russia. That has added something to the intensity of my
> > belief in liberal institutions.
>
> How true that is. Watson has consistently decried the Russian
> revolution as a disaster, no doubt because his "interest in 19th ...
> century Russia" and his "belief in liberal institutions" has led him to
> admiriation for the Tsar and his Okhrana.
It was the October Revolution which was the disaster. Tens of millions
killed. Hundreds of millions of lives distorted. A great literary movement
destroyed. Mine was that of February, the one which could have resulted in
a free, social democratic Russia.
> > The Economist still contains more economic stuff than I am interested
> > in but the quality of its reportage is unsurpassed. BTW I've listened
> > to the BBC on a nightly basis for over 30 years.
>
> I may be wrong, but isn't anglophilia rather typical amongst American
> elitists of the old school?
Perhaps, but I'm a Midwesterner. The elite don't live here, and certainly
not up here in the Northern bush. There are no elites where Malecki lives
either. Elitists aren't asked to join the Committee for the
Rehabilitation of Socialism either. They tend not to like the default
uniform and the cigar smoke. And anyway, what's seeking out good news
broadcasts and magazines in English got to do with Anglophilia?
H.W.
Hunter H. Watson
Black Dragon
> Captain Schwingg wrote:
>
> > In article <3732E4ED...@portup.com>,
> > hwa...@portup.com wrote:
> > >
> > > You guys badly want to see me as a conservative. My history is that
> > > of a liberal activist.
> >
> > Cf. Watson's comments about how the bombing of Serbia will continue
> > until Clinton's demands are met, and how he has sympathy with a
> > republican senator who demand a Tinanmen Square-style crackdown against
> > anti-NATO protesters.
>
> I should conclude that a particular thing a Senator says is beyond the
> pale simply because he is Republican? I can understand that as a
> totalitarian attitude generally but we democrats don't buy it.
>
This coming from someone who disregards information coming from Communist
or Socialist sources, preferring Western Capitalist sources instead.
Watson, as usual, your hypocrisy is showing, and we are all gaping at it.
> > All a long way from the sixties and the anti-
> > Vietnam movement, isn't it?
>
> Yes, those were my green and salad days, but remember, the activism then
> was by no means limited to anti-war efforts. We were interested in far
> more: voting rights and civil liberties, school integration, affirmative
> action, anti-death penalty work, nuclear power, pesticides, endangered
> species, timber practices---and pulp mills to name a few.
>
> > Presumably what Watson means is that his
> > "liberal activist" days are very much in the past?
>
> Not quite. I don't know whether you consider environmental work for public
> interest groups "liberal activism". Most right-wingers around here think
> so. I agree with them. I finished a Memorandum this last weekend on the
> feasibility of suing the State government on a major issue relating to
> endangered species protection. If the decision is to go ahead I will gift
> a very substantial amount of professional time to the effort. It will
> involve preparing and trying a complex, hotly contested, high stakes
> litigation in a venue 500 miles away from my office. Have you ever done
> something in a liberal cause equivalent to that? Anything? I'm curious as
> to whether you are much but talk. Tell us something about your
> accomplishments in liberal causes, Justin. Something concrete.
>
Does Justin need to fight for liberal causes, Watson? If what I've heard
is correct, Justin is a Socialist, and hence needs not live up to your
standards. Course, you're not even a real liberal anyway.
> > Perhaps he's
> > holding out for a medal, or at least a chocolate biscuit, in
> > recognition of the grave sacrifices he made in the cause of peace.
> > It's not his fault that his draft card, unlike so many others, was
> > fireproof.
>
> A chocolate biscuit? Well, maybe that. I'll leave the medals to Russians.
> They love them.
>
> > > We have always been sensitive to questions of civil
> > > liberties. We have always detested dictatorship, promoted democratic
> > > institutions and absolutely rejected totalitarianism.
> >
> > Indeed, it's because of these passionately-held beliefs that Watson
> > suggested that the documentary film "The Maltese Double Cross" might be
> > "defamatory" and hence the FBI could justifiably prevent TV audiences
> > from seeing it.
>
> What's this business about the FBI "preventing" audiences from seeing it?
> If they were involved in that sort of thing I'll be on the barricades.
> Censorship is one of our old fashioned liberal bogeymen. Bitching about
> the film and trying to convince others to boycott it is another thing---a
> sacred right.
>
Since all your information comes from the mainstream media sources,
sources which are funded by the corporations and subject to filtering by
the FBI and government, you would never know about FBI censorship unless
the major media revealed it, and even then only if you dared to question
our government and our Capitalist information sources.
> > > In my case to this is added a life long interest in 19th and 20th
> > > Century Russia. That has added something to the intensity of my
> > > belief in liberal institutions.
> >
> > How true that is. Watson has consistently decried the Russian
> > revolution as a disaster, no doubt because his "interest in 19th ...
> > century Russia" and his "belief in liberal institutions" has led him to
> > admiriation for the Tsar and his Okhrana.
>
> It was the October Revolution which was the disaster.
Funny, I heard disasters happened before then in Russia, often under the
Tsar. You're an idiot, Watson.
Tens of millions
> killed.
Proof?
Hundreds of millions of lives distorted.
Distorted for the better or the worse? Distorted for good reason, or for
worse reason? Or do you know? Or are you just spouting angry drivel?
A great literary movement
> destroyed. Mine was that of February, the one which could have resulted in
> a free, social democratic Russia.
Are you aware that the governments installed after that, except for the
Bolshevik one, willingly suppressed the workers' rights whenever they
could find ways to do it? Read Deutscher's "A Prophet Armed".
>
> > > The Economist still contains more economic stuff than I am interested
> > > in but the quality of its reportage is unsurpassed. BTW I've listened
> > > to the BBC on a nightly basis for over 30 years.
> >
> > I may be wrong, but isn't anglophilia rather typical amongst American
> > elitists of the old school?
>
> Perhaps, but I'm a Midwesterner. The elite don't live here, and certainly
> not up here in the Northern bush. There are no elites where Malecki lives
> either. Elitists aren't asked to join the Committee for the
> Rehabilitation of Socialism either.
Then they come of their own accord? And BTW, Watson, your Committee for
the Rehabilitation of Socialism is not being successful in the slightest
extent. You have been rejected by all Socialists on this group, even
those against the system of Bolshevism. You'd better disband and give up
or find better evidence. The former would be a much easier choice, and
more likely for you to succeed at.
But then, can you really succeed at anything?
Hunter H. Watson
Black Dragon wrote:
> In article <3738AA4E...@portup.com>, hwa...@portup.com wrote:
>
> > Captain Schwingg wrote:
> >
> > > In article <3732E4ED...@portup.com>,
> > > hwa...@portup.com wrote:
> > > >
> > > > You guys badly want to see me as a conservative. My history is that
> > > > of a liberal activist.
> > >
> > > Cf. Watson's comments about how the bombing of Serbia will continue
> > > until Clinton's demands are met, and how he has sympathy with a
> > > republican senator who demand a Tinanmen Square-style crackdown against
> > > anti-NATO protesters.
> >
> > I should conclude that a particular thing a Senator says is beyond the
> > pale simply because he is Republican? I can understand that as a
> > totalitarian attitude generally but we democrats don't buy it.
> >
>
> This coming from someone who disregards information coming from Communist
> or Socialist sources, preferring Western Capitalist sources instead.
> Watson, as usual, your hypocrisy is showing, and we are all gaping at it.
You're all gaping anyway.
> > > All a long way from the sixties and the anti-
> > > Vietnam movement, isn't it?
> >
> > Yes, those were my green and salad days, but remember, the activism then
> > was by no means limited to anti-war efforts. We were interested in far
> > more: voting rights and civil liberties, school integration, affirmative
> > action, anti-death penalty work, nuclear power, pesticides, endangered
> > species, timber practices---and pulp mills to name a few.
> >
> > > Presumably what Watson means is that his
> > > "liberal activist" days are very much in the past?
> >
> > Not quite. I don't know whether you consider environmental work for public
> > interest groups "liberal activism". Most right-wingers around here think
> > so. I agree with them. I finished a Memorandum this last weekend on the
> > feasibility of suing the State government on a major issue relating to
> > endangered species protection. If the decision is to go ahead I will gift
> > a very substantial amount of professional time to the effort. It will
> > involve preparing and trying a complex, hotly contested, high stakes
> > litigation in a venue 500 miles away from my office. Have you ever done
> > something in a liberal cause equivalent to that? Anything? I'm curious as
> > to whether you are much but talk. Tell us something about your
> > accomplishments in liberal causes, Justin. Something concrete.
> >
>
> Does Justin need to fight for liberal causes, Watson? If what I've heard
> is correct, Justin is a Socialist, and hence needs not live up to your
> standards.
Reformist socialist and liberal causes overlap. Had you, Black Dragon, done
something constructive on the left you would know that from experience. And
besides, we are told on apst that Justin has left Marxism. He must be nothing
more than a liberal. If he has no causes he won't even be that.
> Course, you're not even a real liberal anyway.
How would you know, Dragon?
> > > Perhaps he's
> > > holding out for a medal, or at least a chocolate biscuit, in
> > > recognition of the grave sacrifices he made in the cause of peace.
> > > It's not his fault that his draft card, unlike so many others, was
> > > fireproof.
> >
> > A chocolate biscuit? Well, maybe that. I'll leave the medals to Russians.
> > They love them.
> >
> > > > We have always been sensitive to questions of civil
> > > > liberties. We have always detested dictatorship, promoted democratic
> > > > institutions and absolutely rejected totalitarianism.
> > >
> > > Indeed, it's because of these passionately-held beliefs that Watson
> > > suggested that the documentary film "The Maltese Double Cross" might be
> > > "defamatory" and hence the FBI could justifiably prevent TV audiences
> > > from seeing it.
> >
> > What's this business about the FBI "preventing" audiences from seeing it?
> > If they were involved in that sort of thing I'll be on the barricades.
> > Censorship is one of our old fashioned liberal bogeymen. Bitching about
> > the film and trying to convince others to boycott it is another thing---a
> > sacred right.
> >
>
> Since all your information comes from the mainstream media sources,
> sources which are funded by the corporations and subject to filtering by
> the FBI and government, you would never know about FBI censorship unless
> the major media revealed it, and even then only if you dared to question
> our government and our Capitalist information sources.
It's here, Dragon, in the heart of capitalist darkness, that we all dare to
question our government and our capitalist information sources.
If you don't read "capitalist information sources", where do you get your
information? That's if you read at all.
> > > > In my case to this is added a life long interest in 19th and 20th
> > > > Century Russia. That has added something to the intensity of my
> > > > belief in liberal institutions.
> > >
> > > How true that is. Watson has consistently decried the Russian
> > > revolution as a disaster, no doubt because his "interest in 19th ...
> > > century Russia" and his "belief in liberal institutions" has led him to
> > > admiriation for the Tsar and his Okhrana.
> >
> > It was the October Revolution which was the disaster.
>
> Clip
>
> Hundreds of millions of lives distorted.
>
> Distorted for the better or the worse? Distorted for good reason, or for
> worse reason? Or do you know? Or are you just spouting angry drivel?
Lives can not be distorted for the better, Dragon.
> A great literary movement
> > destroyed. Mine was that of February, the one which could have resulted in
> > a free, social democratic Russia.
>
> Are you aware that the governments installed after that, except for the
> Bolshevik one, willingly suppressed the workers' rights whenever they
> could find ways to do it? Read Deutscher's "A Prophet Armed".
If you read it I'll re-read it. You've got to review it first.
> > > > The Economist still contains more economic stuff than I am interested
> > > > in but the quality of its reportage is unsurpassed. BTW I've listened
> > > > to the BBC on a nightly basis for over 30 years.
> > >
> > > I may be wrong, but isn't anglophilia rather typical amongst American
> > > elitists of the old school?
> >
> > Perhaps, but I'm a Midwesterner. The elite don't live here, and certainly
> > not up here in the Northern bush. There are no elites where Malecki lives
> > either. Elitists aren't asked to join the Committee for the
> > Rehabilitation of Socialism either.
>
> And BTW, Watson, your Committee for
> the Rehabilitation of Socialism is not being successful in the slightest
> extent.
How can you say that!? On Friday, a good bunch of us are going to bait fish the
Torch Lake narrows for walleye and northerns and later in the day the Big Lake
shallows with light spiinning gear and spoons for salmon and steelhead. When
the fishing is slow the most delectable of recent apst posts will be read aloud
over Dominican cigars and 30 year old Port. That's always a hit. It will be a
very successful day indeed.
> You have been rejected by all Socialists on this group, even
> those against the system of Bolshevism. You'd better disband and give up
> or find better evidence. The former would be a much easier choice, and
> more likely for you to succeed at.
Disband?!? What? We're on a roll, Dragon. How would you know anyway, never
having fried up fillets of Coho caught five minutes earlier in the sparkling
Spring sunshine on Lake Superior where one can see the bottom in 40 feet of
water?
> But then, can you really succeed at anything?
Sure, fishing alcohol clear Keweenaw Bay with my friends after having driven
off a giant international paper company (James River Corp.) which wanted to
build a 750,000 cords a year kraft process pulp mill there a few years ago. It
took us months of day and night struggle but we got the job done. I made some
enemies but I consider it all a great success. Tell us about one of yours now,
Dragon.
H.W.
>
>
Gary Dale
> We have always been sensitive to questions of civil
> liberties. We have always detested dictatorship, promoted democratic
> institutions and absolutely rejected totalitarianism.
So why did you come on like a religous fruitcake? Forget Lenin, you are
John Lennon singing 'Imagine' with a desire to bring about your vision of
'Year Zero' with cruise missiles.
Captain Schwingg
hwa...@portup.com wrote:
>>
>> But then, can you really succeed at anything?
>
> Sure, fishing alcohol clear Keweenaw Bay with my friends after having
> driven off a giant international paper company (James River Corp.)
> which wanted to build a 750,000 cords a year kraft process pulp mill
> there a few years ago. It took us months of day and night struggle
> but we got the job done. I made some enemies but I consider it all a
> great success. Tell us about one of yours now, Dragon.
Marvellous. A valuable source of employment seen off by
environmentalist concern for some wildlife and trees. Your politics
puts you in exactly the same reactionary camp as nearly every so-called
Trotskyist here, Watson.
If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris and
Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear" and those
such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it, this post
must be the proof.
Hunter H. Watson
Gary Dale wrote:
Strange. I acknowledge realpolitik and balance of power politics. I base my
assessment of the desirability of democracy on historical data. You
describe this approach as "fruitcake" but base your assessments on an
obsolete 19th Century ideology. Now *that's* religious.
H.W.
Hunter H. Watson
Captain Schwingg wrote:
> In article <3738E982...@portup.com>,
> hwa...@portup.com wrote:
> >>
> >> But then, can you really succeed at anything?
> >
> > Sure, fishing alcohol clear Keweenaw Bay with my friends after having
> > driven off a giant international paper company (James River Corp.)
> > which wanted to build a 750,000 cords a year kraft process pulp mill
> > there a few years ago. It took us months of day and night struggle
> > but we got the job done. I made some enemies but I consider it all a
> > great success. Tell us about one of yours now, Dragon.
>
> Marvellous. A valuable source of employment seen off by
> environmentalist concern for some wildlife and trees. Your politics
> puts you in exactly the same reactionary camp as nearly every so-called
> Trotskyist here, Watson.
Such strange bedfellows! They should reconsider their politics.
> If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
> left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
> political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris and
> Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear" and those
> such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it, this post
> must be the proof.
Incomprehensible.
Captain Schwingg
hwa...@portup.com wrote:
>
> > If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
> > left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
> > political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris
> > and Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear"
> > and those such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it,
> > this post must be the proof.
>
> Incomprehensible.
Read through the threads about genetically-modified organisms (a hot
topic of debate in Europe, although in the USA), and make some points.
I'm curious to see how you will deal with the issues raised, on all
sides.
Louis N Proyect
> If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
> left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
> political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris and
> Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear" and those
> such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it, this post
> must be the proof.
Naw, the real division is the same as it has always been. It is based on
class. Once upon a time you understood this, Justin, but like most
anti-Marxists, this basic concept plays no role in your thinking.
"Humanism" or "anti-humanism" are banalities that belong to glossy
newsweeklies, not the world of revolutionary struggle against capitalism.
I have no idea why you lack the guts to simply admit that you are no
longer opposed to capitalism and prefer socialism. Fraidy cat?
Louis P.
Captain Schwingg
100...@bonjour.cc.columbia.edu>, as if to confirm that truces between
mutually antagonistic viewpoints can only be temporary,
Louis N Proyect <ln...@columbia.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, 12 May 1999, Captain Schwingg wrote:
>
> > If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
> > left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
> > political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris
> > and Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear"
> > and those such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it,
> > this post must be the proof.
>
> Naw, the real division is the same as it has always been. It is based
> on class. Once upon a time you understood this, Justin, but like most
> anti-Marxists, this basic concept plays no role in your thinking.
Louis, it isn't LM that has shoved the proletarian class struggle off
today's agenda, but the failure this century of the left and more
broadly all attempts to transform society. A new political culture
that emphasises the strict limits to what can be achieved has emerged
from the wreckage of both the traditional right and the left. Marxists
who try to rally the workers around the old themes are doomed to
irrelevancy if they ignore the new politics. We both regret this, and
both hope that the class struggle will reemerge in the future, but only
one of us is getting to grips with the novel ideological problems which
prevent that happening. As for me being "anti-Marxist", my provocative
rejection of that threadworn label is entirely in the spirit of Marx
when he (allegedly) said that "If I know only one thing, it is that I
am not a Marxist." The only writers employing the dialectical method
to tackle today's problems are those of LM.
> "Humanism" or "anti-humanism" are banalities that belong to glossy
> newsweeklies, not the world of revolutionary struggle against
> capitalism.
No, these are precise terms which encapsulate the key elements of the
new political culture - and its opponents. Your problem is that you
have yet to really face the fact that for the time being, "the world of
revolutionary struggle against capitalism" no longer exists and cannot
be renewed while the "culture of fear" holds sway, so to pretend that
it does will only reinforce the isolation of progressive thought.
> I have no idea why you lack the guts to simply admit that
> you are no longer opposed to capitalism and prefer socialism. Fraidy
> cat?
You should have realised by now that I do not lack the guts to say
anything that needs to be said. So I'll put it at its most blunt - the
limited achievements of capitalist society must be defended against
their destruction at the hands of the "radical conservatives" of the
Green movement et al, if the working class is to have a chance in the
future to play its historic role.
Captain Schwingg
hwa...@portup.com wrote:
> Gary Dale wrote:
>
> > > We have always been sensitive to questions of civil
> > > liberties. We have always detested dictatorship, promoted
> > > democratic institutions and absolutely rejected totalitarianism.
> >
> > So why did you come on like a religous fruitcake? Forget Lenin, you
> > are John Lennon singing 'Imagine' with a desire to bring about your
> > vision of 'Year Zero' with cruise missiles.
>
> Strange. I acknowledge realpolitik and balance of power politics.
That's funny, I could have sworn you explained American involvement in
WW2 as trying to "save Europe's ass from itself", and WW2 more broadly
as a fight for democracy against fascism. And you've definitely argued
that the war against Serbia is motivated by humanitarian concern. Is
it that you want to have your cake and eat it as well, or is it that
you simply strike whatever odious position which gets you off the most
immediate hook?
uchural
<hwa...@portup.com> wrote:
Gary Dale wrote:
> > We have always been sensitive to questions of civil
> > liberties. We have always detested dictatorship, promoted democratic
> > institutions and absolutely rejected totalitarianism.
>
> So why did you come on like a religous fruitcake? Forget Lenin, you are
> John Lennon singing 'Imagine' with a desire to bring about your vision of
> 'Year Zero' with cruise missiles.
Strange. I acknowledge realpolitik and balance of power politics. I base my
assessment of the desirability of democracy on historical data. You
describe this approach as "fruitcake" but base your assessments on an
obsolete 19th Century ideology. Now *that's* religious.
Fundamentalist Religious Fruitcake? Well, Hunter, I liked Bloodthirsty
Maniacal better. I got the cigars. See you at the monthly meeting of
the Committee.
uchural
uchural
sorc...@mailcity.com (Black Dragon) wrote:
This coming from someone who disregards information coming from Communist
or Socialist sources, preferring Western Capitalist sources instead.
Watson, as usual, your hypocrisy is showing, and we are all gaping at it.
Why is it hypocritical to read the press? We live in a Western
Capitalist society. It is our press. You keep talking about
Communist and Socialist sources, Dragon. Please list them for
me. I would like to know where you get your information. For
example, how do you follow the fighting in the Balkans? What
do you read for day by day details? What Communist or Socialist
television do you watch? I want to tune in. What Communist or
Socialist radio do you listen to? I want to hear it, too. What
Communist or Socialist newspapers do you read? I want to
read them, too. List your list, please, Dragon. I want you to tell
us exactly what we should be watching and reading in order not
to be hypocrites.
Hello? Anybody home? Earth to Mars, Earth to Mars....................
uchural
Black Dragon
> Black Dragon wrote:
>
> > In article <3738AA4E...@portup.com>, hwa...@portup.com wrote:
> >
> > This coming from someone who disregards information coming from Communist
> > or Socialist sources, preferring Western Capitalist sources instead.
> > Watson, as usual, your hypocrisy is showing, and we are all gaping at it.
>
> You're all gaping anyway.
>
At your stupidity? Yes, perhaps.
> > > > All a long way from the sixties and the anti-
> > > > Vietnam movement, isn't it?
> > >
> > > Yes, those were my green and salad days, but remember, the activism then
> > > was by no means limited to anti-war efforts. We were interested in far
> > > more: voting rights and civil liberties, school integration, affirmative
> > > action, anti-death penalty work, nuclear power, pesticides, endangered
> > > species, timber practices---and pulp mills to name a few.
> > >
> > > > Presumably what Watson means is that his
> > > > "liberal activist" days are very much in the past?
> > >
> > > Not quite. I don't know whether you consider environmental work for public
> > > interest groups "liberal activism". Most right-wingers around here think
> > > so. I agree with them. I finished a Memorandum this last weekend on the
> > > feasibility of suing the State government on a major issue relating to
> > > endangered species protection. If the decision is to go ahead I will gift
> > > a very substantial amount of professional time to the effort. It will
> > > involve preparing and trying a complex, hotly contested, high stakes
> > > litigation in a venue 500 miles away from my office. Have you ever done
> > > something in a liberal cause equivalent to that? Anything? I'm curious as
> > > to whether you are much but talk. Tell us something about your
> > > accomplishments in liberal causes, Justin. Something concrete.
> > >
> >
> > Does Justin need to fight for liberal causes, Watson? If what I've heard
> > is correct, Justin is a Socialist, and hence needs not live up to your
> > standards.
>
> Reformist socialist and liberal causes overlap.
Is this a NG for reformists? We are revolutionaries, not reformist
liberals like yourself, assuming you're really a liberal. Kind of stupid
to curse about non-reformists not measuring up to your little standards of
how reformist causes should operate.
>
> > Course, you're not even a real liberal anyway.
>
> How would you know, Dragon?
>
I have my ways, oh egotistical ignoramus.
> > Since all your information comes from the mainstream media sources,
> > sources which are funded by the corporations and subject to filtering by
> > the FBI and government, you would never know about FBI censorship unless
> > the major media revealed it, and even then only if you dared to question
> > our government and our Capitalist information sources.
>
> It's here, Dragon, in the heart of capitalist darkness, that we all dare to
> question our government and our capitalist information sources.
>
Okay, but we also must find sources that do not censor the news, unlike
our media. For all your egoism you don't seem to know any of these things
that are basic to all us Marxists here.
And BTW, get your own wit, and quit borrowing that of Proyect's and mine.
That you must go this shows truly your amount of witlessness.
> > Hundreds of millions of lives distorted.
> >
> > Distorted for the better or the worse? Distorted for good reason, or for
> > worse reason? Or do you know? Or are you just spouting angry drivel?
>
> Lives can not be distorted for the better, Dragon.
>
Really? So if a life goes from one of poverty to one of middle-class, it
has not improved? You make one stupid statement after another, Watson.
> > A great literary movement
> > > destroyed. Mine was that of February, the one which could have resulted in
> > > a free, social democratic Russia.
> >
> > Are you aware that the governments installed after that, except for the
> > Bolshevik one, willingly suppressed the workers' rights whenever they
> > could find ways to do it? Read Deutscher's "A Prophet Armed".
>
> If you read it I'll re-read it. You've got to review it first.
>
I've read it. Let's see you have the guts to read it and argue. But then
again - you won't.
> > And BTW, Watson, your Committee for
> > the Rehabilitation of Socialism is not being successful in the slightest
> > extent.
>
> How can you say that!? On Friday, a good bunch of us are going to bait
fish the
> Torch Lake narrows for walleye and northerns and later in the day the Big Lake
> shallows with light spiinning gear and spoons for salmon and steelhead. When
> the fishing is slow the most delectable of recent apst posts will be
read aloud
> over Dominican cigars and 30 year old Port. That's always a hit. It will be a
> very successful day indeed.
>
In other words, your committee isn't successful, just like I told you a
minute ago. You're not convincing anyone to give up Socialism. You are,
in fact, encouraging people to continue being Socialists by revealing,
through your posts, that the most rabid anti-Communists are those that
know nothing about the subject and are not interested in knowing either.
> > You have been rejected by all Socialists on this group, even
> > those against the system of Bolshevism. You'd better disband and give up
> > or find better evidence. The former would be a much easier choice, and
> > more likely for you to succeed at.
>
> Disband?!? What? We're on a roll, Dragon.
< trolling snipped >
> > But then, can you really succeed at anything?
>
> Sure, fishing alcohol clear Keweenaw Bay with my friends after having driven
> off a giant international paper company (James River Corp.) which wanted to
> build a 750,000 cords a year kraft process pulp mill there a few years
ago. It
> took us months of day and night struggle but we got the job done. I made some
> enemies but I consider it all a great success. Tell us about one of
yours now,
> Dragon.
>
Is it neccessary? I've asked you questions you can't answer, and you
resort to a lame Me-better-than-you argument. We support not just keeping
companies from polluting the environment, but from taking the land. If
you knew something about Socialism, you would know that part of it is
putting the land in the hands of the people and away from those of
corporations. This is something we've always supported. God, you are so
backwards, you even amaze me with your stupidity.
> H.W.
>
> >
> >
Stephen R. Diamond
<hwa...@portup.com> wrote:
> > If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
> > left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
> > political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris and
> > Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear" and those
> > such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it, this post
> > must be the proof.
>
> Incomprehensible.
Perfectly comprehensible, despite being wrong.
Lawyers who are too stupid to understand a particular argument
typically say it is "unintelligible."
Stephen R. Diamond
Stephen R. Diamond
<captain_...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
> left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
> political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris and
> Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear" and those
> such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it, this post
> must be the proof.
Or it is a reductio ad absurdum of your position. Can even your
tendency swallow the idea that there is no essential difference between
Watson and the SL or the MWG?
And where do you "place" those like me, you think environmentalist
politics are reactionary, because they undermine the basic class
interests of the working class (as you point out in response to the
nazi Watson), but feel no need (as you do) to rationalize this position
by claiming capitalist growth presents no ecological threats?
(Think about demands for universal disarmament. They are generally to
be opposed because of their reformist-pacifist implications. Yet, no
Marxist feels the need to say nuclear weapons are not dangerous things.
Why do you feel the need to say the search for profits is not dangerous
with respect to the physical ecology? It is like supporting the
military, because for good reasons you don't want to demand
disarmament).
Stephen R. Diamond
rabhegmarlen
Captain Schwingg wrote in message
The only writers employing the dialectical method
>to tackle today's problems are those of LM.
What dialectical method is this then? Maybe that of Heraclitus. You really
are modern, Captain!
>
>> "Humanism" or "anti-humanism" are banalities that belong to glossy
>> newsweeklies, not the world of revolutionary struggle against
>> capitalism.
>
>No, these are precise terms which encapsulate the key elements of the
>new political culture - and its opponents.
Humanism is really the medieval philosophy that was opposed to
scholasticism. And you call this modern?
>You should have realised by now that I do not lack the guts to say
>anything that needs to be said. So I'll put it at its most blunt - the
>limited achievements of capitalist society must be defended against
>their destruction at the hands of the "radical conservatives" of the
>Green movement et al, if the working class is to have a chance in the
>future to play its historic role.
Here we have the real politics of LM. Defending the limited achievements of
capitalism. How is this different from the reformism of the last century?
Do you not realise that the crisis of capitalism means reforms are being
taken away by the reformists themselves? You are a bit late in putting
forward this policy as this was the 1980's Labour Party's alternative to
Thatcherism and before that the 1970's Alternative Economic Strategy of the
Stalinists.
So, mon capitan, how long have we got to defend capitalism before we start
fighting for socialism? Our is socialism just to be brought out for Bank
Holiday speeches?
rab
*************************************************
Roger Alan Blackwell of Norwich, Britain
Pager: 01523 187644
*************************************************
Louis N Proyect
> So, mon capitan, how long have we got to defend capitalism before we start
> fighting for socialism? Our is socialism just to be brought out for Bank
> Holiday speeches?
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for LM to come out for socialism, even
on bank holidays. I stopped at Hausman's Bookstore, near King's Cross
station, to meet up with Paul Flewers. There were a stack of Marxist
classics on sale, nearly 4 feet wide, that had been published by the RCP
when it was still a nominally Marxist outfit. Paul pointed them out to me
and commented that they really have no use for things like "Origins of the
Family", etc. anymore and were dumping them off at all the used
bookstores.
Louis P.
Dave Callaghan
>>
>> Sure, fishing alcohol clear Keweenaw Bay with my friends after having
>> driven off a giant international paper company (James River Corp.)
>> which wanted to build a 750,000 cords a year kraft process pulp mill
>> there a few years ago. It took us months of day and night struggle
>> but we got the job done. I made some enemies but I consider it all a
>> great success. Tell us about one of yours now, Dragon.
>
>environmentalist concern for some wildlife and trees. Your politics
>puts you in exactly the same reactionary camp as nearly every so-called
>Trotskyist here, Watson.
Don't forget that workers live off the earth, drink the water, breathe
the air, just as the wildlife does. The aim of maintaining a life-
sustaining, viable environment, is intrinsic to the fight for socialism,
and in the interest of workers everywhere.
"Let us not flatter ourselves for our human victories over nature.
For every such victory, it takes its revenge on us.
At every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature
like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside
nature. But that we with flesh, blood and brain belong to nature and
exist in its midst."
_Frederick Engels, Dialectics of Nature
>
>If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
>left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
>political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris and
>Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear" and those
>such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it, this post
>must be the proof.
More like the real division is between those of us that wish to live in
the real world and those like the Captain who'd be happy in their tin
cans feeding on their recycled waste products.
Erwin Schrodinger (1945) has described life as a system in steady-state
thermodynamic disequilibrium that maintains its constant distance from
equilibrium (death) by feeding on low entropy from its environment --
that is, by exchanging high-entropy outputs for low-entropy inputs. The
same statement would hold verbatim as a physical description of our
economic process. A corollary of this statement is an organism cannot
live in a medium of its own waste products.
-- Daly and Townsend
--
Dave Callaghan
uchural
sorc...@mailcity.com (Black Dragon) wrote:
God, you are so
backwards, you even amaze me with your stupidity.
Yes, Dragon, even you.
uchural
David O'Bedlam
> hwa...@portup.com wrote:
>>>
>>> But then, can you really succeed at anything?
>>
>> Sure, fishing alcohol clear Keweenaw Bay with my friends after having
>> driven off a giant international paper company (James River Corp.)
>> which wanted to build a 750,000 cords a year kraft process pulp mill
>> there a few years ago. It took us months of day and night struggle
>> but we got the job done. I made some enemies but I consider it all a
>> great success. Tell us about one of yours now, Dragon.
>Marvellous. A valuable source of employment seen off by environmentalist
> concern for some wildlife and trees.
Oh please. What's the sense of "source[s] of employment" if we can't have
clean water to drink, if our whole damn planet's poisoned?
> Your politics puts you in exactly the same reactionary camp as nearly
> every so-called Trotskyist here, Watson.
While yours reveal you as an anti-human idiot. Why don't you just drink
a couple pints of sulphuric acid if you love the shit so much? (You may
mix it with bitters and chase it with tea; that might be "unmanly" but
I can't think less of you for that.)
I disagree with Watson on quite a few things -- if he said his shit
stinks I'd be tempted to want to sniff a sample of myself -- but I'm
actually gratified to read of his environmentalist position. (If he'd
only concentrate on that and leave "broader" politics alone!)
> If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
> left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
> political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris and
> Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear"
That's FUNNY, you ass: deriding an unwillingness to render the Earth as
life-sustaining as the moon as "anti-humanist". Where else can we live?
> and those such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it,
> this post must be the proof.
Tellya what: why don't you and "the other LM supporters" gas yourselves.
If your position is correct you should really thrive on sarin and CO!
TheDavid
--
"One reason for you to go on living is to learn to write well enough so
that your suicide note is not unintentially funny." -David P. Gollub
Stephen R. Diamond
<captain_...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> Louis, it isn't LM that has shoved the proletarian class struggle off
> today's agenda, but the failure this century of the left and more
> broadly all attempts to transform society. A new political culture
> that emphasises the strict limits to what can be achieved has emerged
> from the wreckage of both the traditional right and the left. Marxists
> who try to rally the workers around the old themes are doomed to
> irrelevancy if they ignore the new politics. We both regret this, and
> both hope that the class struggle will reemerge in the future, but only
> one of us is getting to grips with the novel ideological problems which
> prevent that happening. As for me being "anti-Marxist", my provocative
> rejection of that threadworn label is entirely in the spirit of Marx
> when he (allegedly) said that "If I know only one thing, it is that I
> am not a Marxist." The only writers employing the dialectical method
> to tackle today's problems are those of LM.
Tell us what is dialectic about this analysis. It is pure impressionism.
You lay hold of a few aspects of contemporary society, those that happen
to interest your mentor academically, and say these factor warrant a whole
new approach to modern society. How do you compose these factors to draw
your conclusion? How do you know these factors are the key ones to focus
on in contemporary society. To be "dialectical" you must be self-conscious
about answering these questions. Instead, we here only: factor a, b, and c
are salient today, therefore factors d, e, and f are irrelevant. Hardly
dialectical or in any sense scientific.
Stephen R. Diamond
Stephen R. Diamond
> > > > If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
> > > > left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
> > > > political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris and
> > > > Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear" and those
> > > > such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it, this post
> > > > must be the proof.
> > >
> > > Incomprehensible.
> >
> > Perfectly comprehensible, despite being wrong.
>
> Then explain it and I will demonstrate that you are incomprehensible.
So you do not mean to say it is "incomprehensible," which means what is
*written* above cannot be understood, but that the *idea* it attempts to
convey is incoherent - in other words there is no real idea at all behind
the words.
Well, either way, here is what it means. It used to be that political
ideologies were most signifantly divided into right and left, communists
and other socialists on the left, fascists, conservatives, and other
opponents of socialism on the right. (From an ideological perspective
actually conservatives and fascists don't have that much in common, which,
I think, means the right is defined ONLY by its _opposition_ to the left,
but I digress). To say the right-left dimension was the most significant
one is to say that in the plurality of issues whether a given individual
is on one side or the other of the _issue_ can be predicted by whether he
is on he right or left in general.
Today the left-right division is irrelevant. The important political
disputes of the day are not disputes in which leftists are on one side and
rightists on he other. For example, environmentalism is one of the main
issues of the day, but you find among the environmentalists rightists like
yourself and leftists like Louis Proyect. While on the
anti-environmentalist side you find leftists like LM and rightists like
the caapitalist libertarians. That means knowing whether someone is right
or left does not help predict much about what the person will think about
the issues really important at this time in history. The important
dimension is humanism versus anti-humanism.
Your posting proved the point because it was about your environmentalist
leanings, putting you in he company of many of the leftists on this list
on this question.
There are many reasons why the above is dead wrong. But if the idea were
incoherent, I would neither be able to explain it, nor would it even be
possible for it to be wrong, as opposed to senseless.
So, demonstrate away. You will probably make some stupid sounds and
declare yourself as having trounced me.
Stephen R. Diamond
PS NOBODY SHOULD ATTACK ME AS THOUGH I BELIEVE WHAT I SUMMARIZED. THAT
HAPPENS TOO OFTEN FOR COMFORT.
Neil Gardner
> In article <3738E982...@portup.com>,
> hwa...@portup.com wrote:
> >>
> >> But then, can you really succeed at anything?
> >
> > Sure, fishing alcohol clear Keweenaw Bay with my friends after having
> > driven off a giant international paper company (James River Corp.)
> > which wanted to build a 750,000 cords a year kraft process pulp mill
> > there a few years ago. It took us months of day and night struggle
> > but we got the job done. I made some enemies but I consider it all a
> > great success. Tell us about one of yours now, Dragon.
>
> Marvellous. A valuable source of employment seen off by
> environmentalist concern for some wildlife and trees. Your politics
> puts you in exactly the same reactionary camp as nearly every so-called
> Trotskyist here, Watson.
>
> If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
> left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
> political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris and
> Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear" and those
> such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it, this post
> must be the proof.
Schwingg with two g's, where did you get that name from Justin?
This remark epitomises LM's self-aggrandisement. Come off it, most people
have not the foggiest idea who the hell you are. I sympathise with much of
what your clique says about NATO air strikes, though I fail to swallow your
Serb defencism and agree with you on free speech and many false alarms
(like paedophiles lurking in all playgrounds).
However, in today's many fears are well founded and some are not. As usual
we should let empirical analysis prevail over diversionary tactics. A civil
war is raging in Kosovo and people are getting murdered including many
innocents. However, without the KLA and NATO air strikes, Serb repression
would be much more limited, i.e. a few thousand deaths in a civil war is
not tantomount to systematic genocide. However, I predict gross
exaggerations in the death toll attributed to Serb security forces and
those who dispute such figures will be called deniers.
However, Albania and the rest of the Balkans exemplify the limitations of
capitalism and command economies. The fact is, like or not, organised crime
is rife across the whole region and Albanian gangs run prostitution and
drug rackets all over Southern Europe. Without diverting aid to the region,
there is little most western governments can do.
Regards
Neil
Hunter H. Watson
"Stephen R. Diamond" wrote:
> In article <37398302...@portup.com>, Hunter H. Watson
> <hwa...@portup.com> wrote:
>
> > > If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
> > > left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
> > > political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris and
> > > Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear" and those
> > > such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it, this post
> > > must be the proof.
> >
> > Incomprehensible.
>
> Perfectly comprehensible, despite being wrong.
Then explain it and I will demonstrate that you are incomprehensible.
> Lawyers who are too stupid to understand a particular argument
> typically say it is "unintelligible."
We're waiting for you, Stephen.
>
>
> Stephen R. Diamond
Bob Malecki
<captain_...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>
>If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
>left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
>political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris and
>Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear" and those
>such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it, this post
>must be the proof.
Drawing some rather broad conclusions Capitan!
Anyhow to get the record straight a workers government would probably
build a dam and put stairways for the Salmon to climb to there spawing
areas..
Warm Regards
Bob Malecki
-------------------------------------------------------
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Bob Malecki
<drc...@rootandbranch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Don't forget that workers live off the earth, drink the water, breathe
>the air, just as the wildlife does. The aim of maintaining a life-
>sustaining, viable environment, is intrinsic to the fight for socialism,
>and in the interest of workers everywhere.
No shit Dave! Thanks for telling us! But I don't neccessarily think
that building a dam with a stairway for the Salmon by a workers
government contradict living with nature but compliment it.
>
>"Let us not flatter ourselves for our human victories over nature.
>For every such victory, it takes its revenge on us.
>At every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature
>like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside
>nature. But that we with flesh, blood and brain belong to nature and
>exist in its midst."
>
> _Frederick Engels, Dialectics of Nature
Yeah I agree with Engels, However I don't want to conquer nature--but
use it as and instrument for our common survival. But to do that the
system which at present runs things has to be destroyed.
Bob Malecki
<captain_...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>
>Louis, it isn't LM that has shoved the proletarian class struggle off
>today's agenda, but the failure this century of the left and more
>broadly all attempts to transform society. A new political culture
>that emphasises the strict limits to what can be achieved has emerged
>from the wreckage of both the traditional right and the left. Marxists
>who try to rally the workers around the old themes are doomed to
>irrelevancy if they ignore the new politics. We both regret this, and
>both hope that the class struggle will reemerge in the future, but only
>one of us is getting to grips with the novel ideological problems which
>prevent that happening. As for me being "anti-Marxist", my provocative
>rejection of that threadworn label is entirely in the spirit of Marx
>when he (allegedly) said that "If I know only one thing, it is that I
>am not a Marxist." The only writers employing the dialectical method
>to tackle today's problems are those of LM.
Capitan always seems to play this central theme. The working class and
especially its leadership is dead. The failure by the way of the
leadership to find a way out has a lot to to with how Marxistys
approach the question of leadership and with what program and tactics
in regards to the class which has been misled by traitors for
decades..
But, LM anf the Capitan think in their brave new world concepts has
nothing to do with this great historic struggle. They have deserted
the class and any Marxist's ideas for becoming hip spokesman for one
particular corner of capitalism and its technology as being the savior
of mankind.
The message is bottom line hate the working class who are to ignorant
to understand the ideology that LM has now adapted to connected to the
class and life style which they deep down inside defend. The middle
class and consumer society, a product of a very short period in
history which was paid for by the blood of millions previously and
throughout the last 50 years. And now the system is once again on a
course of as Lenin said "a periodical redevision of the spoils" which
hardly come in the line of the brave new world of LM but in the
context of the ideology of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky.
LM is very empirical in the sense that the intellectials pushing this
garbage want to take the line of least resistance to the last 50 post
WW2 years of development which were Specific to a certain historical
outcome of the last war.
Werll Yalta is dead and now it is a whole new ballgame, but with the
same imperialist players whom throughout history never gave humanity
anything else then misery and great technology like the atomic bomb in
order to enforce their rule..
LM is a flagrant example of renagades who for a number of years dipped
into Marxxism and Trotskyism only to get their little middle class
tushies burnt and now in the past few years have turned to being
flashy left agents for pushing some odd sort of brave new world
classless ideology based on capitalist and imperialist production and
distribution forms.
Fuch the working class, fuck the poeble is the real line of LM
connected to getting controversial programs and articles published in
the bourgeois media which in no way questions either the order of
things or class society or a program to find a way out.
For out youth looking for a way out my suggestion is stick to the
readings of great revolutionaries like Marx,Lenin, Luxemburg and
Trotsky rather then the flashy and glossy hip talk which completely
lacks any kind of historical connection to either reality of our
history as a class society laid down by the former that LM now leaves
behind them as they foam from the mouth how the working class is dead
as well as working cklass ideology.
The LM are cretins and opportunist to the core whom run there
operation more on bourgeois debate and public opinion rather then any
deep analisis or understanding of the society we live in and the
history that produced it..
Bob Malecki
wrote:
>
>Oh please. What's the sense of "source[s] of employment" if we can't have
>clean water to drink, if our whole damn planet's poisoned?
Oh I love this reply! Where do you get the clean water pal? From a
faucet and technology .. But it ain't the technology that is the
problem it is the class society which runs it, owns it and controls
it.
You know both this debate and the GM food debate reminds me of
Harrisburg. Where the middle class suddenly discovered it could die
from the technology produced by the system for profit.
Never heard a word about it when the miners average age was 35 to 40
and death of black lung disease. And it was not the coal they mined
which was the problem but the middle class warming up their little
green ones and red ones which caused the real damage..
Why don't you greens go to a west Virginia mining ghost town and live
or a fucking teepee. Lifestyle is connected to the very same problem
you whine about.
Warm regards
Captain Schwingg
38ldi25.dialup.mindspring.com>,
steph...@mindspring.com (Stephen R. Diamond) wrote:
>
> Today the left-right division is irrelevant. The important political
> disputes of the day are not disputes in which leftists are on one
> side and rightists on he other. For example, environmentalism is one
> of the main issues of the day, but you find among the
> environmentalists rightists like yourself and leftists like Louis
> Proyect. While on the anti-environmentalist side you find leftists
> like LM and rightists like the caapitalist libertarians. That means
> knowing whether someone is right or left does not help predict much
> about what the person will think about the issues really important at
> this time in history. The important dimension is humanism versus anti-
> humanism.
>
> Your posting proved the point because it was about your
> environmentalist leanings, putting you in he company of many of the
> leftists on this list on this question.
Spot on, Stephen. I expect Watson couldn't see it because he's still
fighting the Cold War.
Captain Schwingg
"rabhegmarlen" <rog...@blackwell23.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >> "Humanism" or "anti-humanism" are banalities that belong to glossy
> >> newsweeklies, not the world of revolutionary struggle against
> >> capitalism.
> >
> >No, these are precise terms which encapsulate the key elements of the
> >new political culture - and its opponents.
>
> Humanism is really the medieval philosophy that was opposed to
> scholasticism. And you call this modern?
As modern as Karl Marx, who wrote extensively in favour of this
"medieval" world-view in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of
1844? Marxism _is_ consistent, systematically thought out humanism.
And so are the politics of LM.
Captain Schwingg
100...@merhaba.cc.columbia.edu>,
> even on bank holidays. I stopped at Hausman's Bookstore, near King's
> Cross station, to meet up with Paul Flewers. There were a stack of
> Marxist classics on sale, nearly 4 feet wide, that had been published
> by the RCP when it was still a nominally Marxist outfit. Paul pointed
> them out to me and commented that they really have no use for things
> like "Origins of the Family", etc. anymore and were dumping them off
> at all the used bookstores.
Louis, I have explained the relationship between LM's politics and
Marxism more than a couple of times, so I can only interpret your silly
falsification of my argument as a sign that you cannot deal with it any
other way.
Quite contrary to your idea that they are of "no use" anymore, the
series is aimed at undergraduates and most importantly each book
includes a (substantial) introduction by LM writers exploring the
significance of the work when first published and for today, and why
the popular academic criticisms of them are wrong.
The titles in the series are "Origin of the Family", "Imperialism",
"Socialism: Utopian and Scientific", "Communist Manifesto", and "State
and Revolution", available from all good bookshops at a very reasonable
price, or from the Merchandise page at http://www.informinc.co.uk.
Finally, Louis, I do (perhaps wrongly) recall you some time ago
criticising Engel's analysis in "Origin of the Family" as "economic
reductionism", so you'd benefit from the LM edition without a doubt.
Captain Schwingg
38ldhd5.dialup.mindspring.com>,
> factors are the key ones to focus on in contemporary society.
Because they shape the perceptions of every issue today, and the
solutions which are proposed for it.
Captain Schwingg
mal...@algonet.se (Bob Malecki) wrote:
>
> Capitan always seems to play this central theme. The working class and
> especially its leadership is dead.
I really am wasting my time in a.p.s.t. if this is the standard of
debate. I argued that the working class today has no
_political_existence_. That's why, with the exception of Gary Dale and
myself and a couple of others, a.p.s.t. is populated by inactive ex-
members of this and of that.
Captain Schwingg
"Stephen R. Diamond" <steph...@mindpspring.com> wrote:
> In article <7hbsso$ut0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Captain Schwingg
> <captain_...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>
> > If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
> > left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
> > political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris
> > and Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear"
> > and those such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it,
> > this post must be the proof.
>
> tendency swallow the idea that there is no essential difference
> between Watson and the SL or the MWG?
Most of leftists here have championed the Greens. Their "Trotskyism"
is irrelevant today, it's their approach to the issues of the moment,
such as environmentalism, that is decisive with regard to which side
they are on, for progress or for reaction.
> And where do you "place" those like me, you think environmentalist
> politics are reactionary, because they undermine the basic class
> interests of the working class (as you point out in response to the
> nazi Watson), but feel no need (as you do) to rationalize this
> position by claiming capitalist growth presents no ecological threats?
Sigh. I did not argue that "capitalist growth presents no ecological
threats", I argued that environmental problems are quite capable of
being solved through technical development and should not be taken as
an argument to restrain industry. All I can say about your position,
Stephen, is that you haven't thought it through, as you admit
yourself. For example, you should be asking yourself why
environmentalism emerged in the first place, and why it has grown from
strength to strength, despite there being great _improvements_ in
pollution control etc over the same period.
Captain Schwingg
Dave Callaghan <da...@rootandbranch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Don't forget that workers live off the earth, drink the water, breathe
> the air, just as the wildlife does. The aim of maintaining a life-
> sustaining, viable environment, is intrinsic to the fight for
> socialism, and in the interest of workers everywhere.
It's human industry that has made the planet habitable, not the
adoption of a "hands off nature" stance. Can I take it from your post
that you would have been in favour of Watson's campaign?
Captain Schwingg
David O'Bedlam <thed...@tsoft.com> wrote:
>
> Oh please. What's the sense of "source[s] of employment" if we can't
> have clean water to drink, if our whole damn planet's poisoned?
Go back to what I wrote about the "culture of fear", and read the bit
that says "there is a tendency today to grossly inflate the problems
facing society". You, as someone who can write as if the end of the
world is nigh, epitomise this.
> I disagree with Watson on quite a few things -- if he said his shit
> stinks I'd be tempted to want to sniff a sample of myself -- but I'm
> actually gratified to read of his environmentalist position. (If he'd
> only concentrate on that and leave "broader" politics alone!)
Watson's stand on environmentalism is entirely consistent with his
other politics - they are rooted in the fear of change, the idea that
human intervention in society and nature inevitably leads to
unexpected, uncontrollable consequences, and therefore must be
prevented.
Captain Schwingg
ne...@infotrad.demon.co.uk wrote:
> Captain Schwingg wrote:
> > In article <3738E982...@portup.com>,
> > hwa...@portup.com wrote:
> > >
> > > Sure, fishing alcohol clear Keweenaw Bay with my friends after
> > > having driven off a giant international paper company (James
> > > River Corp.) which wanted to build a 750,000 cords a year kraft
> > > process pulp mill there a few years ago. It took us months of
> > > day and night struggle but we got the job done. I made some
> > > enemies but I consider it all a great success. Tell us about one
> > > of yours now, Dragon.
> >
> > Marvellous. A valuable source of employment seen off by
> > environmentalist concern for some wildlife and trees. Your politics
> > puts you in exactly the same reactionary camp as nearly every so-
> > called Trotskyist here, Watson.
> >
> > left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
> > political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris
> > and Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear"
> > and those such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it,
> > this post must be the proof.
>
An unfortunate collision between E.P. Thompson and "Wayne's World".
> This remark epitomises LM's self-aggrandisement. Come off it, most
> people have not the foggiest idea who the hell you are.
The magazine has gone from strength to strength over the last couple of
years, despite being in the shadow of ITN's threat to bankrupt it. LM
writers now often turn up on TV to comment on the issues of the day,
while others have regular columns in the national newspapers (eg. Mick
Hume in Saturday's London Times).
> I sympathise
> with much of what your clique says about NATO air strikes, though I
> fail to swallow your Serb defencism
LM has stated innumerable times that it opposes all Western
interference in the Balkans, but does not support any of the factions
in the former Yugoslavia.
> and agree with you on free speech
> and many false alarms (like paedophiles lurking in all playgrounds).
>
> However, in today's many fears are well founded and some are not. As
> usual we should let empirical analysis prevail over diversionary
> tactics.
Unfortunately, the left has proved incapable of developing its analysis
to explain why the issues that dominate debate nowadays have become so
prominent. The strength of LM's analysis, and why it has found outlets
in the mainstream media, is rooted in its understanding that the
political map has changed beyond recognition since 1989. It appears
that of all sections of society, the old left has found this elemental
truth the most difficult to come to terms with.
Captain Schwingg
mal...@algonet.se (Bob Malecki) wrote:
> On Wed, 12 May 1999 12:40:56 GMT, Captain Schwingg
> <captain_...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> >
> >If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
> >left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
> >political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris and
> >Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear" and
> >those such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it, this
> >post must be the proof.
>
Well Bob, we have to face the fact that the old themes of the left are
not what motivates or enrages people nowadays. They simply are not up
for discussion, and there is an overwhelming sense that nothing can
really be done about the problems the left has traditionally
highlighted, such as poverty and unemployment. That mood of pessimism
and fatalism finds one of its clearest expressions in environmentalism
and hostility to new technologies such as GM. So if we want to put the
_real_ issues back on the map, we have to overcome the fatalistic mood
and win the argument that rational intervention in society and nature
is the answer to our problems, not their cause.
> Anyhow to get the record straight a workers government would probably
> build a dam and put stairways for the Salmon to climb to there spawing
> areas..
I'm all for that, oh yes. Fishing and hunting for all!
Gary Dale
>scholasticism. And you call this modern?
You underestimate what we are up against from the radical left.
Gary Dale
>capitalism. How is this different from the reformism of the last century?
>Do you not realise that the crisis of capitalism means reforms are being
>taken away by the reformists themselves?
The political impasse in society means we are drifting from the old style
state-led reformist projects towards a new agenda of reformism evident in
the Third Way: i.e. 'reforming' people. This is what LM is dealing with.
The issue of defending capitalism or social reforms comes down to a
question of context, priorities, and whether LM writers can make
some clever iconoclastic polemic out of it.
It is the impasse that has led to the loss of nerve from the top of
society downwards. It is the (ideological) loss to the capitalist
class throughout that is typically underestimated, under-seige
and exhausted it has 'won' the class war at a cost of renouncing
itself and all the traditional capitalist values.
So whilst you are right to talk about the exhaustion of the reformist
projects of the old left, you are wrong big-time if you think the present
environment is therefore ripe for rebuilding class politics or
revolutionary marxism. In point of fact the minor academic rennaisance
of the latter usually provides a more forceful expression of the
culture of fear and limits.
rabhegmarlen
>As modern as Karl Marx, who wrote extensively in favour of this
>"medieval" world-view in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of
>1844? Marxism _is_ consistent, systematically thought out humanism.
>And so are the politics of LM.
You know and I know that Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of
1844 were written by Marx when he still hadn't completed the break from the
influence of Feuerbach. His theses on Feuerbach were written in 1845 and
summarise his emerging differences with Feuerbach. It is interesting that
LM is taking the route back from Marx to Feuerbach and passing this of as
*modernism*.
rabhegmarlen
Gary Dale wrote in message <7hejr7$2d4$1...@scotsman.ed.ac.uk>...
>>Humanism is really the medieval philosophy that was opposed to
>>scholasticism. And you call this modern?
>
>You underestimate what we are up against from the radical left.
I suggest that you spell it out, because your comments are far too cryptic
for me.
Captain Schwingg
"rabhegmarlen" <rog...@blackwell23.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> Captain Schwingg wrote in message
>
> >As modern as Karl Marx, who wrote extensively in favour of this
> >"medieval" world-view in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of
> >1844? Marxism _is_ consistent, systematically thought out humanism.
> >And so are the politics of LM.
>
> You know and I know that Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts
> of 1844 were written by Marx when he still hadn't completed the break
> from the influence of Feuerbach. His theses on Feuerbach were
> written in 1845 and summarise his emerging differences with
> Feuerbach. It is interesting that LM is taking the route back from
> Marx to Feuerbach and passing this of as *modernism*.
I have to disagree, Roger - strongly. Marx broke from Feuerbach's
outlook because it wasn't a consistent enough humanism - just as he
broke from Hegel's outlook because the latter didn't give the
transformative role of ideology its full due. Incidentally, this last
point must be absolutely incomprehensible to Claude, who has reduced
Marx to a vulgar materialist (not to mention a superstitious eco-
warrior).
(As for modernism, it can be understood as an elite reaction to the
arrival of mass society, but that's another story :)
claude de paris
Captain Schwingg wrote in message <7hbsso$ut0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
>left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
>political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris and
>Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear" and those
>such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it, this post
>must be the proof.
This is a joke coming from a supporter of an organisation that only last
year was gleefully promoting its popular front alliance in defence of
'freedom of speech' and which likes to entertain extreme right wingers as
contributors to its magazine, as speakers on its TV programs, and provides
links to them on its web site. If there has been any re-alignment here it is
that of the new left ultra leftism of the RCP re-aligning itself as a right
wing libertarian outfit.
claude de paris
Captain Schwingg wrote in message <7hcbi7$d5p$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>Louis, it isn't LM that has shoved the proletarian class struggle off
>today's agenda, but the failure this century of the left and more
>broadly all attempts to transform society.
Not strictly true is it Justin? Given your propensity to sneer at any
workers action or report of it, I suspect it is more a case of wishful
thinking on your part.
>A new political culture
>that emphasises the strict limits to what can be achieved has emerged
>from the wreckage of both the traditional right and the left. Marxists
>who try to rally the workers around the old themes are doomed to
>irrelevancy if they ignore the new politics.
So the only way of mobilising workers against their bosses requires the
pre-condition that first we insist that they drop any tinge of
environmentalism first. What a stupid line.
>As for me being "anti-Marxist", my provocative
>rejection of that threadworn label is entirely in the spirit of Marx
>when he (allegedly) said that "If I know only one thing, it is that I
>am not a Marxist."
You are no Karl Marx, my friend.
>"the world of
>revolutionary struggle against capitalism" no longer exists and cannot
>be renewed while the "culture of fear" holds sway, so to pretend that
>it does will only reinforce the isolation of progressive thought.
Even if what you say about the 'culture of fear' were true it would be a
symptom of the collapse in workers struggles, not its cause. And it will
only be destroyed with a resurgence of class struggle. For all your brave
talk of leading this ideological struggle, the truth is that beyond printing
LM and attacking environmentalists you actually have no discernable strategy
for getting the working class out of this jam.
>You should have realised by now that I do not lack the guts to say
>anything that needs to be said.
As long as it is sufficiently provocative to the left and aids and abets the
right. You remind me of Neil Kinnock who was so fond of proving his machismo
by taking on the left while cowering before the right wing.
>So I'll put it at its most blunt - the
>limited achievements of capitalist society must be defended
In other words the best that Marxists can hope to do today is to defend
capitalism. What a brave new world it is for our LMers.
claude de paris
Captain Schwingg wrote in message <7headi$53$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> For example, you should be asking yourself why
>environmentalism emerged in the first place, and why it has grown from
>strength to strength, despite there being great _improvements_ in
>pollution control etc over the same period...
...which are due to the pressure placed on corporations and governments by
these 'green' movements. Perhaps that is why the grow - because they are
successful in their aims.
Louis N Proyect
> >Humanism is really the medieval philosophy that was opposed to
> >scholasticism. And you call this modern?
>
> You underestimate what we are up against from the radical left.
The radical left? Good god almighty. What kind of misbegotten "Marxist"
tendency attracts mutts like Gary Dale, who has about much interest in
socialist politics as a young Republican. Poor Justin Flude--aka Captain
Schwingg--will spend the rest of his life rubbing shoulders with
aggressively right-wing pricks like Gary Dale. Is that what this
"Revolutionary Communist" expected when he joined up with Frank Furedi?
Louis P.
Hunter H. Watson
Gary Dale wrote:
> >Humanism is really the medieval philosophy that was opposed to
> >scholasticism. And you call this modern?
>
> You underestimate what we are up against from the radical left.
And a good number of other obscurantists.
H.W.
Ken MacLeod
writes
>>Humanism is really the medieval philosophy that was opposed to
>>scholasticism. And you call this modern?
>
>You underestimate what we are up against from the radical left.
>
--
Ken MacLeod
Jim F.
Captain Schwingg <captain_...@my-dejanews.com> wrote in article
<7hbsso$ut0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> In article <3738E982...@portup.com>,
> hwa...@portup.com wrote:
> >>
> >> But then, can you really succeed at anything?
> >
> > Sure, fishing alcohol clear Keweenaw Bay with my friends after having
> > driven off a giant international paper company (James River Corp.)
> > which wanted to build a 750,000 cords a year kraft process pulp mill
> > there a few years ago. It took us months of day and night struggle
> > but we got the job done. I made some enemies but I consider it all a
> > great success. Tell us about one of yours now, Dragon.
>
> Marvellous. A valuable source of employment seen off by
> environmentalist concern for some wildlife and trees. Your politics
> puts you in exactly the same reactionary camp as nearly every so-called
> Trotskyist here, Watson.
>
> If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
> left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
> political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris and
> Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear" and those
> such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it, this post
> must be the proof.
Let me see. Hunter Watson, Lou Proyect, Claude de Paris, and Bob
Malecki are now all in the same political camp. All I can say it must
be some pretty strong herb that those LM guys are smoking in London.
Jim F.
Bob Malecki
<captain_...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>In article <373a7b11...@news.algonet.se>,
> mal...@algonet.se (Bob Malecki) wrote:
>>
>> Capitan always seems to play this central theme. The working class and
>> especially its leadership is dead.
>
>I really am wasting my time in a.p.s.t. if this is the standard of
>debate. I argued that the working class today has no
>_political_existence_. That's why, with the exception of Gary Dale and
>myself and a couple of others, a.p.s.t. is populated by inactive ex-
>members of this and of that.
Well to be honest the above should be called by its right name. The
Capitan is preparing to run off with his tail between his legs and
blame it on the leftists who claim to be "marxists"!
And against your hypothesis of the working class having "no political
existence" I say they certainly do. Unfortunately under the wrong
leadership. But in fact the deep pessimism of the Capitan and LM is
directed at the workers who beheaded for decades of any kind of
leadership which can show them a way out of this mess have certainly
suffered dearly both in ideological and organizational terms.
However LM's political conclusion to desert them in favor of a glossy
magazine devoted to hip middle class youth is hardly the answer to our
problems.
Bob Malecki
<captain_...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>>
>> Drawing some rather broad conclusions Capitan!
>
>Well Bob, we have to face the fact that the old themes of the left are
>not what motivates or enrages people nowadays. They simply are not up
>for discussion, and there is an overwhelming sense that nothing can
>really be done about the problems the left has traditionally
>highlighted, such as poverty and unemployment. That mood of pessimism
>and fatalism finds one of its clearest expressions in environmentalism
>and hostility to new technologies such as GM. So if we want to put the
>_real_ issues back on the map, we have to overcome the fatalistic mood
>and win the argument that rational intervention in society and nature
>is the answer to our problems, not their cause.
Getting very trendy are'nt we! Obviously this stuff as presented by
you might justify your turn to the right but it hardly makes it
correct. Even Lenin and Trotsky understood that the masses only can
achieve a certain amount of understanding of the order of things
because they are confronted daily with the massive propaganda of
bourgeois order.
But getting back to "moods" which certainly change depending on
historical and material facts of life. And if we were to take a look
at late imperialism of late the picture is certainly not bright. But
it hardly has to do with the envionment or GM foods in general.
The whole debate is a fluke created by the petty bourgeois greens and
naturally LM who takes the opposite position on the same side of the
barricades.
Of late in fact this debate is being pushed aside by events like
Yugoslavia and the real possibility of WW3 ..
And then we will get some real mutations!
>
>> Anyhow to get the record straight a workers government would probably
>> build a dam and put stairways for the Salmon to climb to there spawing
>> areas..
>
>I'm all for that, oh yes. Fishing and hunting for all!
Yes! Why not? In a planned economy based on a socialist transitional
society it is certainly quite possible. In fact both the Greens and
the LM play on the doomsday stuff very heavily the above remark being
a good example. But the problem with both the LM and the Greens is
they do not want to attack the real root of disaster and doom. The
capitalist/imperialist system of things which has created this mess.
Both in their *own* special way want to reform it.
Captain Schwingg
mal...@algonet.se (Bob Malecki) wrote:
>
> And against your hypothesis of the working class having "no political
> existence" I say they certainly do.
Give me some examples of their "political existence", Bob. I can't see
any. In Britain, trade unions will now sell their members insurance
against redundancy, but cannot organise industrial action against the
employers, even if they tried, because neither the leadership nor the
members believe it works. Meanwhile, the New Labour government has
systematically excluded what remained of the old labour movement from
any influence, without facing any protest from the working class. In
the recent assembly elections in Wales, the mining communities that
historically were among the most militant section of the working class
ditched Labour and voted for the Welsh Nationalists. It's only when
you have come to terms with the scale of the proletariat's defeat that
you can begin to confront the problems of the present with a clear
vision of what needs to be done. The pathetic claims from Trotskyists
here that nothing important has changed only make them look ridiculous,
all the more so because most of them long ago turned their backs on the
organisations they tried to build. In Claude's case, the person who
makes the loudest noises about "RCP liquidators", he won't even admit
which organisation he was in, such is the depth of his demoralisation.
Captain Schwingg
100...@ciao.cc.columbia.edu>,
>
> > >scholasticism. And you call this modern?
> >
> > You underestimate what we are up against from the radical left.
>
"Radical left" was the term used by the old RCP to distinguish the left
within the old labour movement with a formal commitment to
revolutionary Marxism, such as Militant or Tony Cliff's SWP, as opposed
to the likes of Tony Benn or the old CPGB, who gave their loyalty to
parliamentary democracy.
> Poor Justin Flude--aka Captain Schwingg--
Oh please Louis, spare me these feeble attempts to find and magnify
political differences between me and Gary. There aren't any, but I do
sometimes indulge the old Trots here a bit more than I should.
Captain Schwingg
"claude de paris" <cdep...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Captain Schwingg wrote in message <7hcbi7$d5p$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>
> >Louis, it isn't LM that has shoved the proletarian class struggle off
> >today's agenda, but the failure this century of the left and more
> >broadly all attempts to transform society.
>
> Not strictly true is it Justin? Given your propensity to sneer at any
> workers action or report of it, I suspect it is more a case of wishful
> thinking on your part.
What I "sneer" at is the capacity of certain people here to close their
eyes to reality and pretend that the working class struggles of the
1970s are likely to reemerge. I'm not picking on the so-called
Trotskyists here, I sneer at all manifestations of religious faith.
> >A new political culture
> >that emphasises the strict limits to what can be achieved has emerged
> >from the wreckage of both the traditional right and the left.
> >Marxists who try to rally the workers around the old themes are
> >doomed to irrelevancy if they ignore the new politics.
>
> So the only way of mobilising workers against their bosses requires
> the pre-condition that first we insist that they drop any tinge of
> environmentalism first. What a stupid line.
It certainly is, but it's not "my line". It simply is not possible to
"mobilise workers against their bosses" today, as the British left has
demonstrated beyond anyone's doubt - except that of the British left.
All attempts to do so come up against the key problem that I explained
before, that you have dismissed as "idealist waffle", ie. the consensus
that collective action in pursuit of progressive social change is
perceived to be at best futile, at worst counter-productive. In fact,
the corrosive effects of the new political culture go much further and
deeper than this, because even the idea that _individuals_ can better
their lives through a ratonal intervention in their circumstances is a
casualty, as the rise of the "victim cult" shows. LM has made the
fight against the intellectual underpinnings of that consensus the
focus of its analysis. Meanwhile, the fragments of the left revel in
the overwhelming sense of powerlessness that afflicts society and its
members, kidding themselves that the more they hype up the supposed
threats facing the world, the more likely people are to take action
against them. In the new climate, the opposite is the case.
> >"the world of
> >revolutionary struggle against capitalism" no longer exists and
> >cannot be renewed while the "culture of fear" holds sway, so to
> >pretend that it does will only reinforce the isolation of
> >progressive thought.
>
> Even if what you say about the 'culture of fear' were true it would
> be a symptom of the collapse in workers struggles, not its cause.
Which is exactly what I have explained innumerable times to you.
Unfortunately, instead of getting to grips with the specific problems
of the present, you want to pretend they don't exist and carry on in
the old way, that has already proven ineffective. In fact, you and
others on the left have even embraced the new reactionary currents in
society as progressive, making the left part of the problem, not the
solution.
Captain Schwingg
Get real. The Greens and the charities operate through lobbying, not
people power. Even Greenpeace admits that its campaigns against Shell
etc are stunts to help raise funds, rather than being the methods it
uses to achieve its aims. They have influence because their message
that society is bumping up against natural limits finds a resonance
with the austerity measures the bourgeoisie must impose, nationally and
internationally.
I ask you again Claude - why have the Green groups risen to such
prominence over the last two decades, while at the same time
environmental conditions have improved, especially since the early
1960s? If you can't answer this, and explain the contradiction, then
you've dropped even the pretense of being a Marxist.
Captain Schwingg
mal...@algonet.se (Bob Malecki) wrote:
>
> The whole debate is a fluke created by the petty bourgeois greens and
> naturally LM who takes the opposite position on the same side of the
> barricades.
If we look at the example of environmentalism, we see that it has
become prominent and begun to shape state policy right across the
Western world at more or less the same time. So today Britain has a
transport minister who wants to double the price of gasoline, while
Germany has a coalition government including the Greens who want to
triple it. That isn't a "fluke", that is evidence of objective, law-
governed social change. Exactly the same can be said about the broader
"culture of fear". The saddest thing about the left is that all
mainstream commentators have noted this and pondered it, while the left
has pretended it's not of significance. The left truly is the most
conservative section of society.
Captain Schwingg
> that of the new left ultra leftism of the RCP re-aligning itself as a
> right wing libertarian outfit.
Don't forget that this right-wing ultra-left libertarian outfit of
media whores is also in the pay of the CIA, Slobodan Milosevic and some
shady South African millionaires, and has the aim of defending
communism in its last bastion, Serbia, while undermining the left in
Britain. The truth is out there!
Captain Schwingg
"Jim F." <deb...@gis.net> wrote:
>
> Let me see. Hunter Watson, Lou Proyect, Claude de Paris, and Bob
> Malecki are now all in the same political camp. All I can say it must
> be some pretty strong herb that those LM guys are smoking in London.
Of course, they have great differences on many issues. But not the
important ones of today. Would you have supported Watson's campaigning
activities against that nasty polluting paper mill, Jim?
Hunter H. Watson
"Jim F." wrote:
> Captain Schwingg <captain_...@my-dejanews.com> wrote in article
> <7hbsso$ut0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> > In article <3738E982...@portup.com>,
> > hwa...@portup.com wrote:
> > >>
> > >> But then, can you really succeed at anything?
> > >
> > > Sure, fishing alcohol clear Keweenaw Bay with my friends after having
> > > driven off a giant international paper company (James River Corp.)
> > > which wanted to build a 750,000 cords a year kraft process pulp mill
> > > there a few years ago. It took us months of day and night struggle
> > > but we got the job done. I made some enemies but I consider it all a
> > > great success. Tell us about one of yours now, Dragon.
> >
> > Marvellous. A valuable source of employment seen off by
> > environmentalist concern for some wildlife and trees. Your politics
> > puts you in exactly the same reactionary camp as nearly every so-called
> > Trotskyist here, Watson.
> >
> > If ever anyone here doubted that the old divisions between right and
> > left no longer mean anything, and that the real division in the new
> > political culture is between those like Watson, Proyect, de Paris and
> > Malecki who subscribe to the anti-humanist "culture of fear" and those
> > such as myself and the other LM supporters who oppose it, this post
> > must be the proof.
>
> Let me see. Hunter Watson, Lou Proyect, Claude de Paris, and Bob
> Malecki are now all in the same political camp. All I can say it must
> be some pretty strong herb that those LM guys are smoking in London.
>
> Jim F.
In London, maybe, but not here in Muskogee.
Isn't it something of a strain to judge a person's political camp by whether
on a single issue there might be a bit of an overlap? Struggling to always
see things in terms of an overarching ideology is self-defeating,
impractical. It's an abstracated style which leaves entire movements
eternally outside the real world decision making process, eternally
marginalized. It is at the root of the Far Left's irrelevance today.
Ideology in the Marxist/Leninist sense is a ball and chain.
H.W.
Captain Schwingg
hwa...@portup.com wrote:
>
> Isn't it something of a strain to judge a person's political camp by
> whether on a single issue there might be a bit of an overlap?
Not at all. Most of the debate in a.p.s.t., especially on the subjects
you prefer to raise, such as the Russian Revolution, is utterly
irrelevant to present-day political questions. The only substantive
disagreement you have with the Trotskyists here is over imperialism,
specifically the Kosovo war, although again it has to be said that some
so-called anti-imperialists here would concur with your
characterisation of Serbia as genocidal. The fact that you took part
in a reactionary environmentalist campaign shows that you share the
same fundamental anti-human outlook as the other Greens here. You are
just as much a prisoner of the "culture of fear" as they are.
Gary Dale
> governments by these 'green' movements. Perhaps that is why the grow
> - because they are successful in their aims.
They are multi-million dollar lobbying organisations which can have more
power and influence and at the same time are less democratic than old
political parties.
In the case of anti-roads protestors in places like Newbury, they are
not so much ashamed of their contempt for democracy, the democratic process
and the will of the people, but see it as a positive virtue.
BTW After 'Friends of the Turf' tried to stop the Newbury bypass
(which locals wanted), I hear enviroloons are at it again in
Newbury complaining against Vodafone (a mobile phone Co.) which
wants to site its world HQ on a local greenfield site. Unsurprisingly,
local opinion appears to be overwhelmingly in favour.
Hunter H. Watson
Captain Schwingg wrote:
> Get real. The Greens and the charities operate through lobbying, not
> people power.
I think I'd buy that but it transcends lobbying. The most effective
environmentalist organizations in the United States have active litigation
strategies. The premier example is the Sierra Club. It doesn't just jaw
bone. It goes to war. It has made a difference over the years, over and
over again.
> I ask you again Claude - why have the Green groups risen to such
> prominence over the last two decades, while at the same time
> environmental conditions have improved, especially since the early
> 1960s? If you can't answer this, and explain the contradiction, then
> you've dropped even the pretense of being a Marxist.
I realize you guys are refering to European politics but I'll add as a
footnote that Green groups in the United States do not have the prominence
they had in the 60's and 70's and have never become political parties.
Hunter H. Watson
Captain Schwingg wrote:
> In article <01be9da0$554d2580$ea2f29d8@debfar>,
> "Jim F." <deb...@gis.net> wrote:
> >
> > Let me see. Hunter Watson, Lou Proyect, Claude de Paris, and Bob
> > Malecki are now all in the same political camp. All I can say it must
> > be some pretty strong herb that those LM guys are smoking in London.
>
> Of course, they have great differences on many issues. But not the
> important ones of today. Would you have supported Watson's campaigning
> activities against that nasty polluting paper mill, Jim?
With a little encouragement I'd even tell you how we did it.
H.W.
claude de paris
Captain Schwingg wrote in message <7hgufa$tbc$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>In article <OdgEUwWn#GA.243@cpmsnbbsa02>,
> "claude de paris" <cdep...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> So the only way of mobilising workers against their bosses requires
>> the pre-condition that first we insist that they drop any tinge of
>> environmentalism first. What a stupid line.
>
>It certainly is, but it's not "my line". It simply is not possible to
>"mobilise workers against their bosses" today, as the British left has
>demonstrated beyond anyone's doubt - except that of the British left.
so the argument goes like this:
1. it is impossible to mobilize workers today.
>LM has made the
>fight against the intellectual underpinnings of that consensus the
>focus of its analysis.
2. Therefore all socialists can do today is publish glossy magazines
attacking the 'culture of fear'. Somehow I don't think that that is going to
turn the tide. However you do have a clue as to what to do next. see below.
>Meanwhile, the fragments of the left revel in
>the overwhelming sense of powerlessness that afflicts society and its
>members, kidding themselves that the more they hype up the supposed
>threats facing the world, the more likely people are to take action
>against them. In the new climate, the opposite is the case.
3. Also socialists should not add to the air of pessimism. Should we not,
therefore, point out that the likely outcome of the NATO bombing of Serbia
might result in the defeat of Serbia?
>> Even if what you say about the 'culture of fear' were true it would
>> be a symptom of the collapse in workers struggles, not its cause.
>
>Which is exactly what I have explained innumerable times to you.
>Unfortunately, instead of getting to grips with the specific problems
>of the present, you want to pretend they don't exist and carry on in
>the old way, that has already proven ineffective. In fact, you and
>others on the left have even embraced the new reactionary currents in
>society as progressive, making the left part of the problem, not the
>solution.
What is interesting here is that once we descend from the lofty abstractions
actually, in practical terms, the RCP has very little practical advice to
offer the workers movement, beyond publishing glossy magazines and
organizing cozy get togethers with liberals to discuss free speech. So next
time there is a mobilization by a group of workers attempting to unionize I
am supposed to eshew going on their picket lines as a hopelessly outdated
tactic and instead sell them a copy of LM!
If you agree that the culture of fear is a symptom and not the cause, why do
you insist on focussing your attention on the symtpoms? Surely you should be
attacking the root cause - which is the progressive weakening of the labor
movement. The only way back from that is a long hard struggle to re-build
the workers movements. It isn't easy and it isn't glamourous. By and large
it doesn't get you interviewed on bourgeois chat shows or get you
interviewed on the news.
Of course, it is much, easier to just discuss things in a glossy magazine.
However, my friend, that won't shift the balance of forces one jot. In
keeping with your idealist methodology you believe that the class struggle
can be waged and won purely in the ideological superstructure.
claude de paris
Captain Schwingg wrote in message <7hgv21$tmo$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>In article <Ob3BL0Wn#GA.249@cpmsnbbsa02>,
>I ask you again Claude - why have the Green groups risen to such
>prominence over the last two decades, while at the same time
>environmental conditions have improved, especially since the early
>1960s? If you can't answer this, and explain the contradiction, then
>you've dropped even the pretense of being a Marxist.
And I point out again there is no contradition. Environmental conditions
have improved as A RESULT of the rise of consciousness about environmental
issues and the resulting pressure on legislators and corporations. For
someone who champions idealism it is strange that you don't even understand
the concept of the relative autonomy of the political superstructure.
Unless you regard feminism as a socialist current (which I am sure you
don't) similar problems of analysis could be raised about how come the rise
of workers struggles co-incided with the rise of this 'reactionary' current
of feminism throughout the 60s.
claude de paris
Gary Dale wrote in message <7hh9pk$7ob$1...@scotsman.ed.ac.uk>...
>> ...which are due to the pressure placed on corporations and
>> governments by these 'green' movements. Perhaps that is why the grow
>> - because they are successful in their aims.
>
>They are multi-million dollar lobbying organisations which can have more
>power and influence and at the same time are less democratic than old
>political parties.
so?
claude de paris
Hunter H. Watson wrote in message <373C2B90...@portup.com>...
>I realize you guys are refering to European politics but I'll add as a
>footnote that Green groups in the United States do not have the prominence
>they had in the 60's and 70's and have never become political parties.
Wrong. The Green party is organized nationally. Ralph Nader stood as the
presidential candidate the last time around. It has local elected
representatives on the West coast. In New York 'Granpa Munster' stood as a
GP candidate and got 10,000s of votes. In the DC area the Green party is
larger than, for example, the Labor Party.
Gary Dale
> > You underestimate what we are up against from the radical left.
>
> The radical left? Good god almighty.
I use the term (admittedly loosely) to describe the academic/PoMo/communitarian/
greeny-slacker/relativist left which has informed Blair's Third Way in contrast
to the old collectivist left dominated by trade-unions, the labour party and
the project of pressing for higher wages and state-led social reforms.
Many on the former side can be quite good at sordid mystifications; if it's a choice
between "Earth First!" loons and the Dark Ages, I choose the latter.
Hunter H. Watson
Captain Schwingg wrote:
> In article <373C15BB...@portup.com>,
> hwa...@portup.com wrote:
> >
> > Isn't it something of a strain to judge a person's political camp by
> > whether on a single issue there might be a bit of an overlap?
>
> Not at all. Most of the debate in a.p.s.t., especially on the subjects
> you prefer to raise, such as the Russian Revolution, is utterly
> irrelevant to present-day political questions.
It's not irrelevant to the nature of Marxism/Leninism. That's my
interest. It's not irrelevant to whether we will benefit on that score
from a study of history. You will not escape your political and
intellectual heritage, Justin. It is deplorable. So long as you cling to
that unchanged dogma, that "rivers of blood" ideology, we will neither
respect nor trust you.
> The only substantive
> disagreement you have with the Trotskyists here is over imperialism,
> specifically the Kosovo war, although again it has to be said that some
> so-called anti-imperialists here would concur with your
> characterisation of Serbia as genocidal.
I have an issue with Trotskyism per se. I determine what disagreements I
have with Trotskyism.
> The fact that you took part
> in a reactionary environmentalist campaign shows that you share the
> same fundamental anti-human outlook as the other Greens here.
Bizarre. Anti-human? Working people have no interest in clean water and
clean air? In this country the filthiest and most dangerous living and
working conditions are endured by poor people. They are accordingly the
sickest and have the shortest life spans. Attempts to ameliorate those
conditions are not reactionary. They tend to shift some of the balance of
power, some of the untrammeled discrteion, away from corporate interests.
I will frankly say to you that a good deal of my interests in the field
relate to wilderness issues. That needs no apology either. All classes
have a stake in wilderness.
My friends, colleagues and I have been taking part in environmental
"campaigns" off and on since my graduate school days at Michigan when we
organized the nation's first "Teach-in on the Environment" and three of us
founded the Michigan Law School's Environmental Law Society. Examples
include heavily briefed and lobbied disagreements with Michigan's water
pollution control bureaucracy over its self-defeating attitude toward the
scope of its statutory powers (unsuccessful), a six month hassle with
Consumers Power Company over its policy of subdividing the banks of
Michigan's wild rivers ( quite successful, the policy was stopped and a
major stretch of the famous Au Sable was preserved forever), a nine month
intervention in Atomic Energy Commission licensing proceedings for a huge
nuclear power plant on the shore of Lake Michigan (settled after major
design concessions were made), work on public land timber practices,
endanagered species work (ongoing) , returnable can and bottle legislation
(successful), Washington lobbying for the Sierra Club regarding protection
of the Federal Clean Water Act during the Gingrich Reaction, local
struggles regarding shoreline protection and land use, two pulp mill
conflicts (both completely successful).
> You are
> just as much a prisoner of the "culture of fear" as they are.
Cultures of fear are for weaklings. I don't think the head knockings
involved in the illustrations above put me in that category. You did not
reply to my query regarding *your* life experience, Justin. Tell us what
you have done for the huddled masses.
I can see that I am not up to speed on these arguments among Marxists. I
take it you feel that such interests distract the faithful from
revolutionary dreaming?
Hunter H. Watson
claude de paris wrote:
I stand corrected but I think the exception verifies the rule. Isn't it a
continental phenomenon in Europe? And don't you agree that environmental
interests have lost clout here since the 60's. We got a lot of things done
then and have suffered since from the general conservative reaction in
American politics.
Captain Schwingg
hwa...@portup.com wrote:
> Captain Schwingg wrote:
> > In article <373C15BB...@portup.com>,
> > hwa...@portup.com wrote:
> > >
> > > Isn't it something of a strain to judge a person's political camp
> > > by whether on a single issue there might be a bit of an overlap?
> >
> > Not at all. Most of the debate in a.p.s.t., especially on the
> > subjects you prefer to raise, such as the Russian Revolution, is
> > utterly irrelevant to present-day political questions.
>
> It's not irrelevant to the nature of Marxism/Leninism. That's my
> interest. It's not irrelevant to whether we will benefit on that score
> from a study of history. You will not escape your political and
> intellectual heritage, Justin. It is deplorable. So long as you cling
> to that unchanged dogma, that "rivers of blood" ideology, we will
> neither respect nor trust you.
Who is "we"? You and your dog, Urinal? If you'd bothered to read what
I've been posting this week, you'd realise that I've argued that
working class revolution cannot have any relevance in the present
conditions. The only people discussing the relevance of Marxism for
today are you and the Trotskyists in a.p.s.t. The rest of the world
has moved on to uncharted territory. The Cold War ended in 1989,
Watson. You're acting like one of those Japanese soldiers camped out
on a Pacific island who hasn't heard the big news.
> > The only substantive
> > disagreement you have with the Trotskyists here is over imperialism,
> > specifically the Kosovo war, although again it has to be said that
> > some so-called anti-imperialists here would concur with your
> > characterisation of Serbia as genocidal.
>
> I have an issue with Trotskyism per se. I determine what
> disagreements I have with Trotskyism.
Because Trotskyism is unfortunately irrelevant today, so are your
disagreements with it. And while you determine what your differences
with it are, I determine the significance I attach to those differences.
> > The fact that you took part
> > in a reactionary environmentalist campaign shows that you share the
> > same fundamental anti-human outlook as the other Greens here.
>
> Bizarre. Anti-human? Working people have no interest in clean water
> and clean air? In this country the filthiest and most dangerous
> living and working conditions are endured by poor people. They are
> accordingly the sickest and have the shortest life spans. Attempts to
> ameliorate those conditions are not reactionary.
You didn't "attempt to ameliorate" those conditions, you made sure that
there were no workers at all who experienced any kind of conditions,
good or bad. As for who suffers the most from the exploitative nature
of capitalist society, that would be the unemployed. Of which there
would have been fewer, if you hadn't removed their opportunity to find
payed employment.
> I will frankly say to you that a good deal of my interests in the
> field relate to wilderness issues. That needs no apology either. All
> classes have a stake in wilderness.
Indeed. The working class has an interest in working up the natural
resources found within it into the goods they need to live.
> My friends, colleagues and I have been taking part in environmental
> "campaigns" off and on since my graduate school days at Michigan when
> we organized the nation's first "Teach-in on the Environment" and
> three of us founded the Michigan Law School's Environmental Law
> Society. Examples include heavily briefed and lobbied disagreements
> with Michigan's water pollution control bureaucracy over its self-
> defeating attitude toward the scope of its statutory powers
> (unsuccessful), a six month hassle with Consumers Power Company over
> its policy of subdividing the banks of Michigan's wild rivers ( quite
> successful, the policy was stopped and a major stretch of the famous
> Au Sable was preserved forever), a nine month intervention in Atomic
> Energy Commission licensing proceedings for a huge nuclear power
> plant on the shore of Lake Michigan (settled after major design
> concessions were made), work on public land timber practices,
> endanagered species work (ongoing) , returnable can and bottle
> legislation (successful), Washington lobbying for the Sierra Club
> regarding protection of the Federal Clean Water Act during the
> Gingrich Reaction, local struggles regarding shoreline protection and
> land use, two pulp mill conflicts (both completely successful).
My God, it's a one man crusade against industrial progress! I hope
Claude and the other Greens have their membership forms handy, you're
just the kind of campaigning Luddite technophobe they're interested in
forming a "united front" with.
> > You are
> > just as much a prisoner of the "culture of fear" as they are.
>
> Cultures of fear are for weaklings. I don't think the head knockings
> involved in the illustrations above put me in that category. You did
> not reply to my query regarding *your* life experience, Justin. Tell
> us what you have done for the huddled masses.
Argued against reactionaries like you who wish for a return to an
imaginary pastoral society?
> I can see that I am not up to speed on these arguments among
> Marxists. I take it you feel that such interests distract the
> faithful from revolutionary dreaming?
Ever the philistine, Watson. Try reading the posts in the threads with
the big words.
claude de paris
Hunter H. Watson wrote in message <373C4412...@portup.com>...
>> Wrong. The Green party is organized nationally. Ralph Nader stood as the
>> presidential candidate the last time around. It has local elected
>> representatives on the West coast. In New York 'Granpa Munster' stood as
a
>> GP candidate and got 10,000s of votes. In the DC area the Green party is
>> larger than, for example, the Labor Party.
>I stand corrected but I think the exception verifies the rule. Isn't it a
>continental phenomenon in Europe? And don't you agree that environmental
>interests have lost clout here since the 60's. We got a lot of things done
>then and have suffered since from the general conservative reaction in
>American politics.
I don't know about the 60s. I wasn't here then. But it seems to me that
'Green' ideas are now pretty widespread judging by the money and power of
some of the enviromental organisations. These people range all the way from
right wingers concerned about protecting their neighborhoods and dumping the
crap in working class areas to radicals who draw the conclusion that
capitalism is the problem and that to gain control over our environment and
food we need to take control of the corporations.
Jim F.
Captain Schwingg <captain_...@my-dejanews.com> wrote in article
<7hh05q$uee$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> In article <01be9da0$554d2580$ea2f29d8@debfar>,
> "Jim F." <deb...@gis.net> wrote:
> >
> > Let me see. Hunter Watson, Lou Proyect, Claude de Paris, and Bob
> > Malecki are now all in the same political camp. All I can say it must
> > be some pretty strong herb that those LM guys are smoking in London.
>
> Of course, they have great differences on many issues. But not the
> important ones of today. Would you have supported Watson's campaigning
> activities against that nasty polluting paper mill, Jim?
Why not? Are you arguing that working class people do not have
a stake in a cleaner environment? I would think that one of the
strongest criticisms, one can make of capitalism is that it systemically
promotes ecological despoliation. Although, Marx & Engels wouldn't
qualify as Greens by today's standards, they did make note the
tendency of capitalist industrialization to wreak havoc with the
environment, through pollution. For some strange reason LM
finds such concerns to be "reactionary." In doing so they come
across more like disciples of Ayn Rand (who condemned ennviromentalists)
as "irrationalists" rather than as Marxists. (Oh, ya I forgot, LM is now
a libertarian rather than a Marxist publication, now a days.
Jim F.
Stephen R. Diamond
> For some strange reason LM
> finds such concerns to be "reactionary."
They are reactionary when expressed as reform demands, as the nazi Hunter
Watson did express these 'concerns.' As the Swinging LMer pointed out, the
demand against a polluting factor is also a demand against jobs for
workers. Thus the demand is inherently divisive. It is a petty bourgeois
demand, because it expresses concerns of all classes, and does not serve
to pit class against class. Big capitalists care about "the environment"
as much as workers.
It occurs to me the opposite argument ought to be at least considered.
Could a Watson say the demand including more jobs is reactionary, because
it would lead to despoiling the environment. Making the choice is where it
is necessary to have an understanding of the importance of demands at the
"point of production." Economism tries to teach those demands suffice; the
critique of economism should not be taken to mean such demands are not
necessary.
This all doesn't mean ecological demands should no be demand. But they
MUST be transitional in form, or they become reactionary, as was the
demand of our nazi discussiant.
FOR CONTROL OF THE FACTORIES AND THEIR EFFECT ON THE ENVIRONMENT BY THE UNIONS!
SSTEPHEN DIAMOND
Stephen R. Diamond
struggle to resume, and imply it will, but today it is not yet on the
agenda. The populace has been mesmerized by the precautionary
principle.
But you tell the idiot-nazi Watson that the rest of the populace has
moved BEYOND the issues raised by the nazi.
So which is it? Is the populace backward or advanced; has it regressed
from class struggle, or moved beyond it.
Your equivocation expresses your ambivalence. Now your line is mainly
one of the extreme backwardness of the masses politically, so that they
do not even attain trade unionist consciousness in any developed way.
Tomorrow it will be that class struggle has been abolished, and good
riddance to it. How long will it take? I suppose it will go as fast as
your mentor can think. I've never had the pleasure of discussing with
him.
Stephen R. Diamond
PS If the class war is not abolished, but merely postpone, then the
_real_ divisions do NOT put Watson with the "anti-humanist" socialists;
that would only be appearance.
Also, could you please, if possible, tell me, if possible, whether I
appear to you a humanist or anti-humanist - just to sate my curiosity?
Stephen R. Diamond
demands in their program. This fact does show the reactionary character
of environmentalism when outside the socialist context. But, would not
your view of Watson on the one hand and Louis and Bob on the other as
in the same "anti-humanist" camp ALSO require you to claim the overt
Nazis were in the same camp as Marxists with environmental concerns.
You did say the common position "proved" their basic similarity.
You are not a "dialectician" because you don't analyze your way to
"essence." Your evidence consists of bits of data strung together. I
have seen no argument that the cultural phenomena, about which I
largely agree with your mentor (as an academic sociologist) is
fundamental.
Stephen R. Diamond
David Stevens
"Hi honey, I'm home" -- is what I almost retitled this thread
in an outbreak of self-indulgence. But I'm probably not gonna
stay very long, and it seems appropriate to leave the thread's
title intact ... a rambling collection of _ad hominems_ to label
a discussion which occasionally lapses into politics.
I know that Hunter missed my sterling wit, but at least a
low-bandwidth version of my old a.p.s.t. Janitor silhouette
is still available online:
http://www.slip.net/~drs/janitor4b.gif.
(I dunno when I'll manage to do maintenance to the "Trotsky, Sex
and Drugs" website; the only changes since anyone here last saw it
would be that some of the linked-to URLs have expired). :-(
The Commie Ring is still going strong -- there are on the order
of 100 sites now either active or enqueued waiting for HTML to
be added. (If anyone finds an expired URL _when browsing the
Commie Ring_, please send me private e-mail ... there's no way
I can cruise the ring on a regular basis any more than I can
actually read this newgroup). Websites with Marxist themes
(or websites run by Marxists) are welcome to self-register
their URLs to the ring:
http://www.slip.net/~drs/commiering.html
I'm spending a little time these days giving advice to people
about landlord-tenant issues. Some questions are easy ("how
do I get my damage deposit back?"), some are impossible
("how do I find affordable housing in San Francisco?"),
and some are heartbreakers. But sometimes I get to help
empower people, and I've certainly learned a few things
in the process.
TS&D's red flag last flew over Dolores Park; the "Reclaim
San Francisco/Reclaim Mayday" picnic and march drew several
thousand people to celebrate both International Workers Day
and the pagan rites of Beltane. I'm too old for dancing
(even if a MayPole is involved), but since we got the chance
to sing The Internationale in two languages, I didn't feel
left out at all.
And, notwithstanding my absence from this forum for more
than a year, it looked familiar right away. There's still
Bob Malecki with Louis Proyect and Claude de "Paris Green,"
seemingly locked into political stasis just as I left them.
There's still Hunter Watson trying to get Trotskyists to
foot the bill for Stalin bloodcrimes like the Katyn massacre.
There's still Chris Camacho, using the name Redflag to alibi
the red, white, and blue. There's still Ken MacLeod making
cogent points in his effort to take this forum seriously.
At first I thought that Justin taking a new handle was the
only thing different at all. But then I come across Stephen
Diamond writing something like this:
>
> FOR CONTROL OF THE FACTORIES AND THEIR EFFECT ON THE ENVIRONMENT BY THE UNIONS!
Stephen, you were supposed to be our bourgeois pseudointellectual
and resident cybercafe rate. Have you moved to the left? Or has
the ground underfoot just shifted subtly to the right?
Sometimes, I think we'll make a commie out of you yet.
But maybe I should simply aspire for you to make commies
out of some of these parlor pinks and goose greens.
- David Stevens
Dave Callaghan
<captain_...@my-dejanews.com> writes
>In article <373bb181...@news.algonet.se>,
> mal...@algonet.se (Bob Malecki) wrote:
>>
>> And against your hypothesis of the working class having "no political
>> existence" I say they certainly do.
>
>Give me some examples of their "political existence", Bob. I can't see
>any. In Britain, trade unions will now sell their members insurance
>against redundancy, but cannot organise industrial action against the
>employers, even if they tried, because neither the leadership nor the
>members believe it works. Meanwhile, the New Labour government has
>systematically excluded what remained of the old labour movement from
>any influence, without facing any protest from the working class. In
>the recent assembly elections in Wales, the mining communities that
>historically were among the most militant section of the working class
>ditched Labour and voted for the Welsh Nationalists. It's only when
>you have come to terms with the scale of the proletariat's defeat that
>you can begin to confront the problems of the present with a clear
>vision of what needs to be done. The pathetic claims from Trotskyists
>here that nothing important has changed only make them look ridiculous,
>all the more so because most of them long ago turned their backs on the
>organisations they tried to build. In Claude's case, the person who
>makes the loudest noises about "RCP liquidators", he won't even admit
>which organisation he was in, such is the depth of his demoralisation.
This is a person who has truly turned his back on Marxism and the
working class. (I should watch out mate, one day you might receive one
hell of a kick up the backside from the class you write off)
It is a narrow, petty nationalist, blinkered, deluded, anti-Marxian view
that he holds, or should I say holds him.
The class is *international*, it doesn't only exist in Britain. The
class struggle is a world wide phenomenon and it's not over yet by a
long chalk.
--
Dave Callaghan
Jim F.
Stephen R. Diamond <steph...@mindspring.com> wrote in article
<stephend15-14...@user-38ldhai.dialup.mindspring.com>...
> In article <01be9e28$6fb0f0e0$981d29d8@debfar>, "Jim F." <deb...@gis.net>
wrote:
>
> > For some strange reason LM
> > finds such concerns to be "reactionary."
>
> They are reactionary when expressed as reform demands, as the nazi Hunter
> Watson did express these 'concerns.' As the Swinging LMer pointed out,
the
> demand against a polluting factor is also a demand against jobs for
> workers. Thus the demand is inherently divisive. It is a petty bourgeois
> demand, because it expresses concerns of all classes, and does not serve
> to pit class against class. Big capitalists care about "the environment"
> as much as workers.
The same argument can be used against a variety of reform demands. Thus
demands for affirmative action can be opposed on the frounds that they
pit white workers against black workers (or male workers against female
workers) rather than class against class. However, such an analysis
would IMO be superficial and undialectical because the undermining
of the stratification of the working class along lnes of race, ethnicity,
and gender is essential for the development of classwide solidarity.
The claim that big capitalists have as much a stake in a cleaner
environment as workers is simply not true. Wealthy capitalists
can to a large extent escape the negative consequences of the
ecological devastation that their economic activities wreak.
Working class people are much less free in this regard.
Nevertheless, it is true that particular environmentalist demands
may well (in the short-run at least cause divisions within the
working class because they may threaten the jobs of particular
workers). The resolution of this contradiction requires coordination
between the environmentalist movement and the labor movement,
something not easily achieved but essential for the revitalization of
progressive politics.
>
> It occurs to me the opposite argument ought to be at least considered.
> Could a Watson say the demand including more jobs is reactionary, because
> it would lead to despoiling the environment. Making the choice is where
it
> is necessary to have an understanding of the importance of demands at the
> "point of production." Economism tries to teach those demands suffice;
the
> critique of economism should not be taken to mean such demands are not
> necessary.
>
> This all doesn't mean ecological demands should no be demand. But they
> MUST be transitional in form, or they become reactionary, as was the
> demand of our nazi discussiant.
The same can be said for all reformist demands whether such demands take
the
form of ecological demands or demands for more jobs.
>
> FOR CONTROL OF THE FACTORIES AND THEIR EFFECT ON THE ENVIRONMENT BY THE
UNIONS!
Of course!!
Jim F.
>
> SSTEPHEN DIAMOND
>
Bob Malecki
<captain_...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>In article <373C15BB...@portup.com>,
> hwa...@portup.com wrote:
>>
>> Isn't it something of a strain to judge a person's political camp by
>> whether on a single issue there might be a bit of an overlap?
>
>Not at all. Most of the debate in a.p.s.t., especially on the subjects
>you prefer to raise, such as the Russian Revolution, is utterly
>irrelevant to present-day political questions.
The Capitan claiming the Russian question as being "irrevelant" must
be the most wacko thing that anybody on the Internet could possibly
say. The Russian question both yesterday and even far more today is
the decisive factor of just why we are in the mess we find ourselves!
Warm Regards
Bob Malecki
-------------------------------------------------------
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Bob Malecki
<steph...@mindpspring.com> wrote:
>
>Your equivocation expresses your ambivalence. Now your line is mainly
>one of the extreme backwardness of the masses politically, so that they
>do not even attain trade unionist consciousness in any developed way.
>Tomorrow it will be that class struggle has been abolished, and good
>riddance to it. How long will it take? I suppose it will go as fast as
>your mentor can think. I've never had the pleasure of discussing with
>him.
>
>Stephen R. Diamond
Steve has got your number Capitan! Just a question. Are you connected
to the central leadership of the ex RCP now LM or were you attracted
too it. Be very interesting to hear the answer ..
By the way Steve. I am not so sure that the environmentalists like the
"Bluebird" movement in post WW1 Germany played a certain role in the
evolvement of the Nazi's who used this national discontent and Mr.
Clean stuff to create some of its program.
However this does not mean that I equate environmental activists with
the Nazis. However a class analisis of this stuff might be
appropriate. The bluebird movement developed in the the petty
bourgeois sector claiming that industrialism was the reason for all
the woes of Germany including losing WW1 which gave it a very
nationalist taint.
Be very interesting to see the old national socialist propaganda
around this stuff to see how they used this stuff..
Warm regards
Bob Malecki
<captain_...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>In article <373bb181...@news.algonet.se>,
> mal...@algonet.se (Bob Malecki) wrote:
>>
>> And against your hypothesis of the working class having "no political
>> existence" I say they certainly do.
>
>Give me some examples of their "political existence", Bob. I can't see
>any. In Britain, trade unions will now sell their members insurance
>against redundancy, but cannot organise industrial action against the
>employers, even if they tried, because neither the leadership nor the
>members believe it works.
Empirist bullshit Capitan. Trades unions are not just what the
treacherous trade union tops do to betray the membership. But mass
organizations of the workers . That in itself gives them political
existence. It is not "trade unions" that are selling out the workers
insurance in Britain or anywhere else but a definite layer of trade
union bureaucrats at the top . The point is to go into the unions and
fight for another leadership.
>Meanwhile, the New Labour government has
>systematically excluded what remained of the old labour movement from
>any influence, without facing any protest from the working class. In
>the recent assembly elections in Wales, the mining communities that
>historically were among the most militant section of the working class
>ditched Labour and voted for the Welsh Nationalists.
Well ,Well, now we blame the workers instead of the left in Britain
who always has built illusions in the Labor Party including the last
round of national elections where the entire left except the ICL were
calling for "critical" support to Tony Blair.
And the truth is that it certainly is not the workers fault that they
have turned to Scottish nationalism in the Welsh elections. The point
being that no clear left alternative has ever been presented to them.
And the traditional left is still miring in old labor time and again
tailing the leftwing bureaucrats rather then trying to build a real
alternative to the LP. Lately the left has been cheerleading the
"lefts" in and outside of labor and its half ass opposition to Blair's
line on the Yugoslavian stuff.
Unless and clear political alternative which recognizes that Labor and
all of its wings is dead! And a new party in England is built then the
working class certainly will continue its drift to the right and
nationalism.
The petty bourgeois LM rather then seeing this stuff and try to change
it try to adapt to it in its own petty bourgeois way just as the left
continues to be on its knees for the labor left...
A deep split of labor is the only viable alternative as a step in the
direction of real change out of a working class perspective in
England.
>It's only when
>you have come to terms with the scale of the proletariat's defeat that
>you can begin to confront the problems of the present with a clear
>vision of what needs to be done. The pathetic claims from Trotskyists
>here that nothing important has changed only make them look ridiculous,
>all the more so because most of them long ago turned their backs on the
>organisations they tried to build. In Claude's case, the person who
>makes the loudest noises about "RCP liquidators", he won't even admit
>which organisation he was in, such is the depth of his demoralisation.
In a sense you are correct. There are a lot of "pathetic" outfits
claiming to be "Trotskyist" in England! Most all of them historically
have been on their knees intro labor completely capitulating to them.
And yes a defeat is a defeat. The only organization in the world I
know of that has recognized this defeat is the ICL. Whom I even didn't
like went they came to the conclusion that the destruction of the
Soviet Union in many ways has taken us back to pre 1914 days of the
labor movement. But I too unfortunately must now admit that this is
correct even if as a worker and a workerist deviation it set very
fucking deep to admit and realize this stuff.
In fact I remember very clearly how enraged I was and wrote a sharp
critizism of this arguement pushed by the leadership of the ICL. I
took it as they to wanted to blame the workers if I rember correctly.
However this does not change the historical, nor programatic tasks
confronting communists albeit it certainly could mean the need to
adjust tactics.
And there is a difference between centrists outfits who still
"liquidate" into the labor left in one way or another and the RCP
leaving the workers movement for a more glossy alternative amongst
youth and the middle class.
Anyhow against this stuff the perspective in England is not new as the
LM now leaves us to cross the Rubicon for the middle class. The goal
is and always has been to destroy labor and build a real workers party
in England.
Naturally this goes for the Germans and Swedes and the rest of this
continent where Social Democracy now moving towards liberalism is
creating a vacum for the left and the Stalinists whom want to take
their place rather then build a *real* communist International.
That I believe can be the only goal of those claiming to be "Marxist"
or "Communist"..
And I doubt if the RCP now LM wants to travel that road--nor many of
the so called "Trotskyist" groups who more and more have the appetites
to fill the shoes of the departing Social Democrats and Stalinists..
Warm Regards
Bob Malecki
<captain_...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>In article <373bb148...@news.algonet.se>,
> mal...@algonet.se (Bob Malecki) wrote:
>>
>> The whole debate is a fluke created by the petty bourgeois greens and
>> naturally LM who takes the opposite position on the same side of the
>> barricades.
>
>If we look at the example of environmentalism, we see that it has
>become prominent and begun to shape state policy right across the
>Western world at more or less the same time. So today Britain has a
>transport minister who wants to double the price of gasoline, while
>Germany has a coalition government including the Greens who want to
>triple it. That isn't a "fluke", that is evidence of objective, law-
>governed social change. Exactly the same can be said about the broader
>"culture of fear". The saddest thing about the left is that all
>mainstream commentators have noted this and pondered it, while the left
>has pretended it's not of significance. The left truly is the most
>conservative section of society.
This is so funny and quite ridiculous. As we get the reports from
Germany on the Greens trying to outdo the Social Democrats on bombing
Serbia back to the stone age connected to the biggest envirionmental
crisis known to man (war) I doubt if there is much talk about the
price of petrol!
In fact the propaganda around environment at home is basically
directed at the middle class and its life style being threatened by
that oh so horrible industrial society that they have distance
themselves from..
The "broader culture of fear" is basically middle class hysteria and
it has a definite class bias to it. Thus legislation to higher taxes
at home to introduce etrhanol cars is connected at the same time to
the greens supporting ecological catastropy in Yugoslavia with bombs
and war.
And the so called "law governed social change" being your arguement
for class analisis of society must be the biggest joke of all. What
pretentious bullshit!
I guess this makes the present legislation being presented by Clinton
on guns --after the Littleton stuff--and example of LM's ideas of a
class analisis of social change. If the bourgeois state and its
parties (including the Greens talks about it then poof we now have a
new situation that LM can liquidate into with its hiptalk..
The longer this discussion goes the more absurd you get to soung
Capitan...
Gary Dale
> > Not at all. Most of the debate in a.p.s.t., especially on the
> > subjects you prefer to raise, such as the Russian Revolution, is
> > utterly irrelevant to present-day political questions.
>
> It's not irrelevant to the nature of Marxism/Leninism.
Erm, hello?! Anybody home?!
'the nature of marxism/Leninism' is irrelevant to present-day political
questions.
Captain Schwingg
Dave Callaghan <da...@rootandbranch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <7hgsfi$s76$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Captain Schwingg
> <captain_...@my-dejanews.com> writes
> > mal...@algonet.se (Bob Malecki) wrote:
> >>
> >> And against your hypothesis of the working class having "no
> >> political existence" I say they certainly do.
> >
> >Give me some examples of their "political existence", Bob. I can't
> >see any. In Britain, trade unions will now sell their members
> >insurance against redundancy, but cannot organise industrial action
> >against the employers, even if they tried, because neither the
> >Labour government has systematically excluded what remained of the
> >old labour movement from any influence, without facing any protest
> >from the working class. In the recent assembly elections in Wales,
> >the mining communities that historically were among the most
> >militant section of the working class ditched Labour and voted for
> >the scale of the proletariat's defeat that you can begin to confront
> >the problems of the present with a clear vision of what needs to be
> >done. The pathetic claims from Trotskyists here that nothing
> >important has changed only make them look ridiculous, all the more
> >so because most of them long ago turned their backs on the
> >organisations they tried to build. In Claude's case, the person who
> >makes the loudest noises about "RCP liquidators", he won't even admit
> >which organisation he was in, such is the depth of his
> >demoralisation.
>
> working class. (I should watch out mate, one day you might receive
> one hell of a kick up the backside from the class you write off)
The fact that you have to invoke an imaginary future scenario to
counter my argument that the working class today has no political
existence speaks volumes, Dave.
> It is a narrow, petty nationalist, blinkered, deluded, anti-Marxian
> view that he holds, or should I say holds him.
Then I'm sure you'll have no problem putting forward a rational
argument as to why my observations and argument are wrong. Oh dear,
all you've put forward is insults. Again, this speaks volumes.
> The class is *international*, it doesn't only exist in Britain. The
> class struggle is a world wide phenomenon and it's not over yet by a
> long chalk.
That's true enough, which is why I confined my comments to Britain, and
more broadly the English-speaking world (ie. the USA, Canada, Australia
and New Zealand). However, it's about time that the old Trots here
faced up to the situation on the international stage as well. Anti-
imperialism in the third world has all but collapsed, now that the
Stalinist world isn't around to give it diplomatic backing and a
modicum of political coherence. Nowadays, those fighting oppression
there are much more likely to call for Western intervention to help
solve their problems, rather than seeing the West as the cause of their
oppression, along with their local states. That's why the KLA have
been demanding NATO intervention against Serbia, why the East Timorese
are calling for UN peacekeepers to safeguard them from the Indonesian
state, why the Palestinian authorities have full-time CIA advisors, and
so forth.
Captain Schwingg
mal...@algonet.se (Bob Malecki) wrote:
> On Fri, 14 May 1999 10:04:34 GMT, Captain Schwingg
> <captain_...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> >In article <373bb181...@news.algonet.se>,
> > mal...@algonet.se (Bob Malecki) wrote:
> >>
> >> And against your hypothesis of the working class having "no
> >> political existence" I say they certainly do.
> >
> >Give me some examples of their "political existence", Bob. I can't
> >see any. In Britain, trade unions will now sell their members
> >insurance against redundancy, but cannot organise industrial action
> >against the employers, even if they tried, because neither the
> >leadership nor the members believe it works.
>
> Empirist bullshit Capitan. Trades unions are not just what the
> treacherous trade union tops do to betray the membership. But mass
> organizations of the workers . That in itself gives them political
> existence.
No it doesn't. Unions in Britain today are unions only in name. And
they are under no pressure from their members to be anything else,
because their members have become convinced that there is nothing else
they could be.
> >Meanwhile, the New Labour government has
> >systematically excluded what remained of the old labour movement from
> >any influence, without facing any protest from the working class. In
> >the recent assembly elections in Wales, the mining communities that
> >historically were among the most militant section of the working
> >class ditched Labour and voted for the Welsh Nationalists.
>
> Well ,Well, now we blame the workers instead of the left in Britain
Just making some observations, Bob, not assigning blame.
> And the truth is that it certainly is not the workers fault that they
> have turned to Scottish nationalism in the Welsh elections. The point
> being that no clear left alternative has ever been presented to them.
Actually, it has, a number of times. But workers do not regard it as
credible, for all the reasons I've explained over the last week.
> A deep split of labor is the only viable alternative as a step in the
> direction of real change out of a working class perspective in
> England.
New Labour has made such a split - away from Old Labour. When
Scargill's SLP stood in its first election in a constituency that was
once a heartland of the NUM and the old labour movement, it was
humiliated by a massive majority for the Blairite candidate.
> And yes a defeat is a defeat. The only organization in the world I
> know of that has recognized this defeat is the ICL. Whom I even didn't
> like went they came to the conclusion that the destruction of the
> Soviet Union in many ways has taken us back to pre 1914 days of the
> labor movement. But I too unfortunately must now admit that this is
> correct even if as a worker and a workerist deviation it set very
> fucking deep to admit and realize this stuff.
>
> In fact I remember very clearly how enraged I was and wrote a sharp
> critizism of this arguement pushed by the leadership of the ICL. I
> took it as they to wanted to blame the workers if I rember correctly.
Look Bob, I don't take any pleasure in pointing out these hard facts
(except, perhaps, when I've been slandered by those who deny them), and
I can understand how upsetting it must be to people who have selflessly
dedicated an awful lot of time, effort and money to building
organisations that have been swept away by the turn of events. But as
an old Russian once said, the first duty of a revolutionary must be to
squarely face up to reality and call a spade a spade.
> However this does not change the historical, nor programatic tasks
> confronting communists albeit it certainly could mean the need to
> adjust tactics.
Sigh. And I thought you were on to the beginning of something there,
Bob.
Hunter H. Watson
Captain Schwingg wrote:
> In article <373C423A...@portup.com>,
> hwa...@portup.com wrote:
> > Captain Schwingg wrote:
> > > In article <373C15BB...@portup.com>,
> > > hwa...@portup.com wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Isn't it something of a strain to judge a person's political camp
> > > > by whether on a single issue there might be a bit of an overlap?
> > >
> > > Not at all. Most of the debate in a.p.s.t., especially on the
> > > subjects you prefer to raise, such as the Russian Revolution, is
> > > utterly irrelevant to present-day political questions.
> >
> > It's not irrelevant to the nature of Marxism/Leninism. That's my
> > interest. It's not irrelevant to whether we will benefit on that score
> > from a study of history. You will not escape your political and
> > intellectual heritage, Justin. It is deplorable. So long as you cling
> > to that unchanged dogma, that "rivers of blood" ideology, we will
> > neither respect nor trust you.
>
> Who is "we"? You and your dog, Urinal?
"We" are almost all the rest. We overwhelm you in numbers. We marginalize
you by definition.
> If you'd bothered to read what
> I've been posting this week, you'd realise that I've argued that
> working class revolution cannot have any relevance in the present
> conditions.
I can't read everything. Some "technical" threads I have to glance at and
pass by. Please identify the thread.
> The only people discussing the relevance of Marxism for
> today are you and the Trotskyists in a.p.s.t. The rest of the world
> has moved on to uncharted territory. The Cold War ended in 1989,
> Watson. You're acting like one of those Japanese soldiers camped out
> on a Pacific island who hasn't heard the big news.
Vivid imagery. And a good point. But there are Marxist/Leninists here and
I'm having a good time.
> > > The only substantive
> > > disagreement you have with the Trotskyists here is over imperialism,
> > > specifically the Kosovo war, although again it has to be said that
> > > some so-called anti-imperialists here would concur with your
> > > characterisation of Serbia as genocidal.
> >
> > I have an issue with Trotskyism per se. I determine what
> > disagreements I have with Trotskyism.
>
> Because Trotskyism is unfortunately irrelevant today, so are your
> disagreements with it. And while you determine what your differences
> with it are, I determine the significance I attach to those differences.
Of course, of course. Perhaps I should go through the threads you speak of.
Which are they?
> > > The fact that you took part
> > > in a reactionary environmentalist campaign shows that you share the
> > > same fundamental anti-human outlook as the other Greens here.
> >
> > Bizarre. Anti-human? Working people have no interest in clean water
> > and clean air? In this country the filthiest and most dangerous
> > living and working conditions are endured by poor people. They are
> > accordingly the sickest and have the shortest life spans. Attempts to
> > ameliorate those conditions are not reactionary.
>
> You didn't "attempt to ameliorate" those conditions, you made sure that
> there were no workers at all who experienced any kind of conditions,
> good or bad.
That's not true as a matter of fact. The Companies in question expanded
operations and jobs in other places. They have every bit the productive
capacity they would have had had they located those two mills on the Lake
Superior watershed. The timber is trucked further but that simply adds blue
collar jobs which wouldn't have been there under the other scenario. The
issue was Lake Superior and only secondarily 1890's pulp mill technology
per se.
> As for who suffers the most from the exploitative nature
> of capitalist society, that would be the unemployed.
Which are here at a ten year low. The papers are filled with employment
ads.
> Of which there
> would have been fewer, if you hadn't removed their opportunity to find
> payed employment.
See above.
> > I will frankly say to you that a good deal of my interests in the
> > field relate to wilderness issues. That needs no apology either. All
> > classes have a stake in wilderness.
>
> Indeed. The working class has an interest in working up the natural
> resources found within it into the goods they need to live.
Of course, we all do. Our position regarding timber practices would
multiply their value over the long run and vastly increase the jobs
involved while at the same time enhancing forest biodiversity and the
quality of the multi-use wilderness experience. All of us have a stake in
rational forest management practices. Roughly half the land in Michigan's
Upper Peninsula is government owned. Most of the other half is owned by
corporate timber industry or mining interests. Conceptually it would not be
difficult to manage these huge expanses rationally. Politically it is very
difficult. The bureaucracies are captives of those they regulate and not
corporate board is willing to make any sacrifice on the altar of future
generations. Grab it now is the prevailing ethic. A frontier mentality
complete with a false sense of boundlessness still rules out here.
> > My friends, colleagues and I have been taking part in environmental
> > "campaigns" off and on since my graduate school days at Michigan when
> > we organized the nation's first "Teach-in on the Environment" and
> > three of us founded the Michigan Law School's Environmental Law
> > Society. Examples include heavily briefed and lobbied disagreements
> > with Michigan's water pollution control bureaucracy over its self-
> > defeating attitude toward the scope of its statutory powers
> > (unsuccessful), a six month hassle with Consumers Power Company over
> > its policy of subdividing the banks of Michigan's wild rivers ( quite
> > successful, the policy was stopped and a major stretch of the famous
> > Au Sable was preserved forever), a nine month intervention in Atomic
> > Energy Commission licensing proceedings for a huge nuclear power
> > plant on the shore of Lake Michigan (settled after major design
> > concessions were made), work on public land timber practices,
> > endanagered species work (ongoing) , returnable can and bottle
> > legislation (successful), Washington lobbying for the Sierra Club
> > regarding protection of the Federal Clean Water Act during the
> > Gingrich Reaction, local struggles regarding shoreline protection and
> > land use, two pulp mill conflicts (both completely successful).
>
> My God, it's a one man crusade against industrial progress! I hope
> Claude and the other Greens have their membership forms handy, you're
> just the kind of campaigning Luddite technophobe they're interested in
> forming a "united front" with.
Wrong again. You apparently think industrial "progress" should be defined
as whatever the corporate types want. If technology doesn't serve humankind
it eventually becomes its enemy. The catastrophic environmental record of
the Soviet Union is a good example. In a society where the decision makers
never have to answer to other strata the result is awful. Quality of life
issues are critical. We need to re-define "industrial efficiency". It must
be the capacity to get the job done in a fashion consistent with ecological
and quality of life requirements. That's necessary for long term stability.
Obviously necessary. Even most birds have it together enough to avoid
taking a crap in the nest.
> > > You are
> > > just as much a prisoner of the "culture of fear" as they are.
> >
> > Cultures of fear are for weaklings. I don't think the head knockings
> > involved in the illustrations above put me in that category. You did
> > not reply to my query regarding *your* life experience, Justin. Tell
> > us what you have done for the huddled masses.
>
> Argued against reactionaries like you who wish for a return to an
> imaginary pastoral society?
Talk walks. Deeds are what matter.
> > I can see that I am not up to speed on these arguments among
> > Marxists. I take it you feel that such interests distract the
> > faithful from revolutionary dreaming?
>
> Ever the philistine, Watson. Try reading the posts in the threads with
> the big words.
I'm not sure you really want me to do so but identify such a recent thread
and I'll put on my thinking cap.
Philistine? Its accepted meaning in the language is: vandal, bigot,
uncultured, yahoo, barbarian, mediocrity, etc.
Trotsky loved the word. Used it constantly. Lenin used it too. He was very
hostile to philistines. The system he set up eventually decimated
philistines by the tens of thousands. The group most decimated in that
class as a function of its size were artists, writers and poets.
Hunter Watson
REMEMBER THE TERROR!
Captain Schwingg
> <7hh05q$uee$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> > "Jim F." <deb...@gis.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > Let me see. Hunter Watson, Lou Proyect, Claude de Paris, and Bob
> > > Malecki are now all in the same political camp. All I can say it
> > > must be some pretty strong herb that those LM guys are smoking in
> > > London.
> >
> > Of course, they have great differences on many issues. But not the
> > important ones of today. Would you have supported Watson's
> > campaigning activities against that nasty polluting paper mill, Jim?
>
> Why not? Are you arguing that working class people do not have
> a stake in a cleaner environment? I would think that one of the
> strongest criticisms, one can make of capitalism is that it
> systemically promotes ecological despoliation. Although, Marx &
> Engels wouldn't qualify as Greens by today's standards, they did make
> note the tendency of capitalist industrialization to wreak havoc with
> finds such concerns to be "reactionary." In doing so they come
> across more like disciples of Ayn Rand (who condemned
> ennviromentalists) as "irrationalists" rather than as Marxists. (Oh,
> ya I forgot, LM is now a libertarian rather than a Marxist
> publication, now a days.
I'll note in passing that Ayn Rand was right. And I don't regard
"libertarian" as a dirty word, nor "freedom", in fact I thought the
attainment of these conditions was exactly what Marxists were aiming
for.
You point out that Marx and Engels would not qualify as Greens today.
Indeed, the Greens have condemned Marxism for its environmentally-
unsound focus on expanding the forces of production. This raises some
interesting questions that I unsuccessfully put to Claude about why the
environmentalist movement emerged at the end of the 1960s, and why
concerns about the environment have increased at the same time that
enviromental problems have actually dimished. In Marx's time, the
rapid industrialisation of Britain and its reliance on steam power led
to tremendous pollution problems, so much so that the Midlands
heartland of the industrial revolution was dubbed the Black Country
because of the soot that covered everything, people included. So why
didn't Marx focus on environmental issues in his time? And why did
environmentalism take off when it did, after the great impact of, for
example, the Clean Air Acts in Britain which did away with London's
deadly "pea soupers" of the 1950s?
The problem with your approach to these questions, Jim, is that you
have uncritically accepted the agenda of the environmentalists. You
have attempted to give these concerns a left-wing gloss, rather than
question why these concerns have arisen when they have, and why they
have taken a particular form. There is a very good reason why Marx
didn't consider the pollution problems of his own time as a significant
factor in his social critique. He regarded them as technical problems
that would be solved through the normal course of industrial and
scientific development, as on the whole they have been. Nowadays, the
environmentalists regard the far less serious pollution problems of
their own time as irrefutable arguments against industrial society per
se. The difference in attitudes is due to the radically different
perceptions that society had of itself then and now. It's today's
pessimistic outlook on society and human nature which has lent false
credibility to environmentalism, and it's that outlook which stand in
the way of putting the case for progressive social transformation.
Hunter H. Watson
"Stephen R. Diamond" wrote:
> In article <01be9e28$6fb0f0e0$981d29d8@debfar>, "Jim F." <deb...@gis.net> wrote:
>
> > For some strange reason LM
> > finds such concerns to be "reactionary."
>
> They are reactionary when expressed as reform demands, as the nazi Hunter
> Watson did express these 'concerns.' As the Swinging LMer pointed out, the
> demand against a polluting factor is also a demand against jobs for
> workers. Thus the demand is inherently divisive.
Not if it is simultaneously a demand against profits generated without shouldering
the full cost of production.
> It is a petty bourgeois
> demand, because it expresses concerns of all classes, and does not serve
> to pit class against class.
Terrible, that.
> Big capitalists care about "the environment"
> as much as workers.
Hilarious. What they "care about" as humans is overwhelmed by the short term
aquisitive instinct. They can buy personal environments which are still pristine.
> It occurs to me the opposite argument ought to be at least considered.
> Could a Watson say the demand including more jobs is reactionary, because
> it would lead to despoiling the environment. Making the choice is where it
> is necessary to have an understanding of the importance of demands at the
> "point of production." Economism tries to teach those demands suffice; the
> critique of economism should not be taken to mean such demands are not
> necessary.
>
> This all doesn't mean ecological demands should no be demand. But they
> MUST be transitional in form, or they become reactionary, as was the
> demand of our nazi discussiant.
You really ought to take more pride in your writing, Stephen. These two paragraphs
are a mess.
> FOR CONTROL OF THE FACTORIES AND THEIR EFFECT ON THE ENVIRONMENT BY THE UNIONS!
Jimmy Hoffa's Teamsters, perhaps? Do you really equate American trade unions with
the working class? If you do you haven't the foggiest as to how they are run now
days.
> SSTEPHEN DIAMOND
Great typo, Stephen.
Hunter H. Watson
"Stephen R. Diamond" wrote:
>
> So which is it? Is the populace backward or advanced; has it regressed
> from class struggle, or moved beyond it.
It doesn't even exist in the Marxian sense.
>
> Tomorrow it will be that class struggle has been abolished, and good
> riddance to it. How long will it take? I suppose it will go as fast as
> your mentor can think. I've never had the pleasure of discussing with
> him.
Tomorrow is already here.
>
>
> Stephen R. Diamond
>
> PS If the class war is not abolished, but merely postpone, then the
> _real_ divisions do NOT put Watson with the "anti-humanist" socialists;
> that would only be appearance.
>
> Also, could you please, if possible, tell me, if possible, whether I
> appear to you a humanist or anti-humanist - just to sate my curiosity?
You are the most cynical and selfish person I "know". You are also the
least honest. You are an admitted Republican.
H.W.