The Culture of Fear
Stephen R. Diamond
dispassionate judgment of the LM thesis that there exists in he US and
England a "culture of fear" that is reactionary in character.
Ken MacLeod has expressed some sympathy with he LM cultural critique. I
at one time had some qualified sympathy for it. Is this sympathy
warranted? Is LM "right wing?" (Ken, as a professional writer, maybe you
can tell me once and for all where a question mark goes in relation to
quotation marks).
First, in what lies the attractiveness of this cultural critique? It
seems to sum up a number of reactionary currents in Anglo-American
culture. For example, the Green movement is used, whatever Louis may
plead, as a bulwark against socialism, by propogating the idea that he
forces of production cannot or should not expand, even under socialism.
Then there are paternalistic measures by the state (e.g. seatbelt laws)
that are designed to increase the moral authority of the state.
I don't think people are really more risk averse today than they ever
were. In general people have ALWAYS overestimated the significance of
small risks, and underestimated the significance of large risks. It is a
cognitive distortion, probably a built in limitation on human
information processing. People are afraid of the greenhouse effect, but
will drive while drunk. The culture of fear is just a one-sided
pseudo-theory.
Where the culture of fear theory becomes reactionary is that it is
naturally aimed at all the measures by which the working class has
established minimal security of livelihood. This message, I contend, is
the subtext of LM propoganda. To LM wages should replace security
measures, a utopian proposal, which at the same time undermines what
Engels called the islands of socialism within capitalism (or something
like that).
Recently I "reviewed" the LM article on the mass slaughter of the Jews.
The subtext of that article, I contended, was an extremely veiled
version of "holocaust denial" and anti-semitism.
LM, in my opinion, is currently a petty bourgeois tendency, no different
in fundamental class character from the hated Greens. Like the Greens,
it is headed to the far right.
That is the unity of opposites, dialecticians.
Stephen R. Diamond
ln...@panix.com
>First, in what lies the attractiveness of this cultural critique? It
>seems to sum up a number of reactionary currents in Anglo-American
>culture. For example, the Green movement is used, whatever Louis may
>plead, as a bulwark against socialism, by propogating the idea that he
>forces of production cannot or should not expand, even under socialism.
The Green movement contains extremely reactionary elements. For
example, neo-Malthusians in the Sierra Club nearly passed a resolution
supporting closed borders. In Washington State, some Greens, attacking
the right of the Makah to hunt whales, joined forces with ultraright
politicans. Paul Hawkens, a well-known figure who made a fortune
running gardening equipment shops, writes books defending capitalism
as a way of saving the planet from environmental destruction. He
believes that if nature can be priced properly then waste will not
take place. Moreover, one can say that every ideological current from
libertarianism on the right to Marxism on the left is developing some
kind of response to the environmental crisis. What distinguishes LM is
its refusal to believe that such a crisis exists. They take their cure
from the late Julian Simons who believed that capitalism will resolve
all such problems, from global warming to soil fertility.
In any case, it is not very useful to attack the Greens from a
procapitalist standpoint. If we are Marxists, then we must develop a
Marxist approach. The point I have been making for about 4 years now
is that Marx was a distinctly ecological thinker. His concern with the
problem of soil fertility and his rejection of industrial farming put
him squarely in what might be called the ecological arena.
I have recommended Marxist/ecological literature here before. Let me
do once again:
1. John Bellamy Foster, "The Vulnerable Planet"
2. David Pepper, "Ecosocialism"
3. Paul Burkett, "Marx and Nature"
4. David Harvey, "Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference" (I
have problems with this book but it a clear call for fighting
environmental racism. Harvey is one of the more respected academic
Marxists.)
5. James O'Connor, "Natural Causes"
6. Mike Davis, "Ecology of Fear"
7. William Cronon, "Uncommon Ground"
8. Carolyn Merchant, "Ecological Revolutions"
9. Anything written by the great Donald Worster
10. Daniel Faber, "Environment under Fire"
Louis Proyect
The Marxism List is at: http://www.marxmail.org
Stephen R. Diamond
> The point I have been making for about 4 years now
> is that Marx was a distinctly ecological thinker. His concern with the
> problem of soil fertility and his rejection of industrial farming put
> him squarely in what might be called the ecological arena.
Is there any significant faction of the Greens who do not argue for
limits on the development of productivity under *socialism*, either
directly or by omission?
Stephen R. Diamond
Louis N Proyect
> limits on the development of productivity under *socialism*, either
> directly or by omission?
>
> Stephen R. Diamond
Not really. Most Greens are opposed to socialism, so they don't really
bother to offer suggestions to Cuba, for instance. They view both
socialism and capitalism as "promethean" attempts to control nature. The
most systematic attempt to offer an alternative to capitalism or socialism
comes from the "Deep Ecology" current, whose guru Arnold Neiss is
essentially a philosophical nihilist. The dead end of this current is, of
course, the Unabomber. But you can't use the cryptofascist Ron Arnold to
answer the Unabomber, as LM magazine did. Socialism is about science and
planning. Deep Ecology is a retreat from science.
Geoff Collier
Stephen R. Diamond <steph...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:stephend15-EFD34...@news.mindspring.com...
> With Flude's disruptive tactics out of the way, maybe we can form a
> dispassionate judgment of the LM thesis that there exists in he US and
> England a "culture of fear" that is reactionary in character.
>
> Ken MacLeod has expressed some sympathy with he LM cultural critique. I
> at one time had some qualified sympathy for it. Is this sympathy
> warranted? Is LM "right wing?" (Ken, as a professional writer, maybe you
> can tell me once and for all where a question mark goes in relation to
> quotation marks).
The question as a whole is more than the words in brackets. Therefore the
question mark should be ouside of the quotation marks. But you will disagree
because I am in the IS Tendency, I expect.
Now, I do not read LM - mainly because the only shop that stocks it round
here is on the university campus where I rarely go. However I've
occasionally read or heard stuff elsewhere. Furedi seems to me to have
adopted a political position that distrusts everything but a "rugged
individualism" akin to the great American dream myth.
I can't help agreeing with Stephen Diamond here that LM is a
rightward-moving petit bourgeoise tendency. Sorry
geoff
>
> Stephen R. Diamond
rabhegmarlen
news:38b2efef...@news.columbia.edu...
> I have recommended Marxist/ecological literature here before. Let me
> do once again:
>
> 1. John Bellamy Foster, "The Vulnerable Planet"
> 2. David Pepper, "Ecosocialism"
> 3. Paul Burkett, "Marx and Nature"
> 4. David Harvey, "Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference" (I
> have problems with this book but it a clear call for fighting
> environmental racism. Harvey is one of the more respected academic
> Marxists.)
> 5. James O'Connor, "Natural Causes"
> 6. Mike Davis, "Ecology of Fear"
> 7. William Cronon, "Uncommon Ground"
> 8. Carolyn Merchant, "Ecological Revolutions"
> 9. Anything written by the great Donald Worster
> 10. Daniel Faber, "Environment under Fire"
Anyone read I Laptev *The Planet of Reason (A Sociological Study of
Man-Nature Relationship)* by Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1973 (transl.
1977)? "We are used to walling off the world of man from the world of
nature. This is unjustified. In fact, to the great sorrow of all
systematicians, there are no strict boundaries" - Alexander Herzen.
rab
--
Roger Blackwell, Norwich, NR3, Britain
Pager: +44 (0) 1523 187644
www.blackwell23.freeserve.co.uk
Stephen R. Diamond
<ge...@balcony17.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> The question as a whole is more than the words in brackets. Therefore the
> question mark should be ouside of the quotation marks. But you will
> disagree
> because I am in the IS Tendency, I expect.
There are many things on which I agree with most IS members. For
example, they and I reject the Flat Earth Theory.
Your answer is the one that makes the most sense to me. Whether the
question mark goes inside the quotation marks depends on whether the
question itself is inside or outside the marks. I have, however, read of
different conventions, such as the question mark, like he period,
*always* going within the quotation marks.
Stephen R. Diamond
William Kaufman
Louis N Proyect wrote,
"Most Greens are opposed to socialism . . . "
Do you have any empirical date to back up this blanket assertion, or is this
just a stroke of wild impressionism? In my experience most Greens have a
militantly anticorporate, anticapitalist outlook--perhaps not sufficiently
steeped in the history of internecine Marxist warfare for your taste, but
certainly receptive to the insights of socialists. To write them off, as you
and others on this newsgroup are apparently doing, is suicidal. There are
millions of potential Green Party voters who are disgusted with the
depradations of the free market--yet you treat the movement as some sort of
tightly organized political current rather than what it is--a steadily
rising, increasingly militant wave of opposition among masses of Americans
to the destructive prerogatives of big capital. Socialists should be seeking
to join with this movement, to give it direction and leadership, rather than
writing it off. Are you more concerned to play to the APST lounge than the
big room out there, where the mass audience is? Is that why you're pandering
to Diamond's ignorant anti-Green philistinism? And why haven't you uttered
one word about the Nader candidacy, which you grudgingly admitted you might
be in favor of a month or so ago? Are contemporary domestic politics that
much less important to you than the class nature of the Cuban state?
David Stevens
> ...
>
> First, in what lies the attractiveness of this cultural critique? It
> seems to sum up a number of reactionary currents in Anglo-American
> culture. For example, the Green movement is used, whatever Louis may
> plead, as a bulwark against socialism, by propogating the idea that he
> forces of production cannot or should not expand, even under socialism.
>
> that are designed to increase the moral authority of the state.
This sort of thing is the major raison d'etre for TS&D. As much
as the popfrontists, the antiporn feminists and pink advocates of
the War on [Ghetto] Drugs are our special focus.
> I don't think people are really more risk averse today than they ever
> were. In general people have ALWAYS overestimated the significance of
> small risks, and underestimated the significance of large risks. It is a
> cognitive distortion, probably a built in limitation on human
> information processing.
Yes, it is.
> People are afraid of the greenhouse effect, but
> will drive while drunk. The culture of fear is just a one-sided
> pseudo-theory.
Hmm. I think there is a cultural hardening around questions
of risk aversion. My freedom always ends where your nose
begins, but noses are getting longer on a social basis than
ever before. I'm afraid that the problem runs a little bit
depper (and is a bit more class-exclusionary) than just being
a question of mandatory seat belt laws.
Oops -- there -- did you see? Above, I said "I'm afraid."
The culture of fear. QED. ;-)
> Where the culture of fear theory becomes reactionary is that it is
> naturally aimed at all the measures by which the working class has
> established minimal security of livelihood. This message, I contend, is
> the subtext of LM propoganda. To LM wages should replace security
> measures, a utopian proposal, which at the same time undermines what
> Engels called the islands of socialism within capitalism (or something
> like that).
>
> Recently I "reviewed" the LM article on the mass slaughter of the Jews.
> The subtext of that article, I contended, was an extremely veiled
> version of "holocaust denial" and anti-semitism.
Yes; I agreed with your remarks, but never got around to
articulating a coherent response.
I see contradictions in LM: They sometimes run two stories,
with angular but opposing POV on the very same thing.
> LM, in my opinion, is currently a petty bourgeois tendency,
> no different in fundamental class character from the hated
> Greens.
I agree with this.
> Like the Greens, it is headed to the far right.
I would say that they _appear_ to be going to the right.
I do not like it, of course -- whereas with the Greens,
I'm not really capable of caring unless they did NOT move
to the right, because that would require me to do a fundamental
reassessment of what I mean whan I say "inevitable."
If LM is already falling down the slippery slope,
I still believe that there was a time in recent history
when they had not yet reached the point of no return.
> That is the unity of opposites, dialecticians.
I think that compating LM or ex-RCP to "LaRoucheites" is
beyond the pale -- unless and until they do something like
Operation Mop-Up.
Otherwise, I tend to agree -- that's dialectics.
-- David Stevens
[drsyou...@slip.net] (Remove your_pants to reply)
Trotsky, Sex & Drugs http://www.slip.net/~drs
ln...@panix.com
<kma...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>Louis N Proyect wrote,
>"Most Greens are opposed to socialism . . . "
>
>Do you have any empirical date to back up this blanket assertion, or is this
>just a stroke of wild impressionism? In my experience most Greens have a
>militantly anticorporate, anticapitalist outlook--perhaps not sufficiently
>steeped in the history of internecine Marxist warfare for your taste, but
>certainly receptive to the insights of socialists. To write them off, as you
>and others on this newsgroup are apparently doing, is suicidal.
I am not "writing them off". I am trying to convince them of the need
for socialism, which is different than being against capitalism.
Here's a good explanation of the issues involved from Joel Kovel, a
Marxist and leader of the NY State Greens.
TO THE GREENS #3
Toward Ecosocialism
The response to my last communication, "Beyond Populism," was
substantial and gratifying. It kicked off a lively debate that is
still swirling as of this writing--which is the source of
gratification. We may--given the limits of our knowledge, must--differ
in many ways. But one principle should be held by all: long live
debate! There may be no absolute truths, but there is a moving toward
the truth in spirited dialogue and argumentation. So in that very same
spirit, let me take the next step in the reasoning. Unfortunately, the
sheer number of reactions to the previous pieces makes it impossible
to respond individually to the many issues raised. I will, however,
try to incorporate some of the themes in what follows. As some of you
know, I have been at work on a book, THE ENEMY OF NATURE, in which
these matters will be addressed in some detail. I'll also try to
respond in further communications raised by these issues, although as
I am setting off on a speaking tour this week, it will be difficult to
do justice to their many-sidedness. Bearing in mind these limits, here
is an outline of what I see as going beyond populism.
Let me say first of all that the critique of populism was not done in
the spirit of trashing it but of literally going beyond, which doesn't
imply a rejection but a building-upon. My point is that insofar as
populists think that it is sufficient to regulate big corporations, or
to project a future in which small capitalists are the dominant type,
they are betraying their very own splendid ideals and history. These
kinds of betrayals have indeed happened in the history of populism (as
they have in just about every worthwhile ideal, including, most
certainly, socialism); and in every case, we need to learn what went
wrong and to overcome it. In the case of populism, I would submit,
what went wrong has generally been the refusal to extend the point of
attack to capital itself. From this failing the always-latent
personalist logic of populism begins to take over, with the potentials
for scapegoating, etc, now activated.
I don't think any less of a critique needs to be offered with respect
to socialism as well. It, too, has to be "gone beyond," although the
fundamental impulse, to supersede capitalism, must be preserved. Here
are my thoughts on the direction this should take.
The term, "ecosocialism," indicates what I have in mind as the model
of a just and ecologically sustainable society. Some greens have
objected by claiming that socialism cannot be paired in any way with
the green outlook on the world, as though being green were some kind
of immortal essence whose difference from socialism were fixed for all
time and self-explanatory to boot. For many, the word, "socialism," is
irrevocably stained with the failures of twentieth century movements
under that name, variously described as statist, centralized and
authoritarian in character. This set of failings is often coupled with
a statement to the effect that the American people are turned off by
the word, socialism, and won't have anything to do with a movement
that uses it.
There are a bunch of assumptions embedded in these objections:
--they falsely assume that the twentieth century regimes that called
themselves socialist, like the USSR, had a monopoly on what socialism
means. This overlooks the fact that in virtually every case, the
statism, centralization, authoritarianism, etc, were the results of
trying to achieve capitalist ends through socialist means--in other
words, the failed socialisms didn't believe deeply enough in the ideal
of superseding capital, or were otherwise blocked from implementing
this (as by ferocious attacks by imperialism, etc);
--they fail to note that the core definition of socialism, certainly
that developed by Marx, has nothing to do with statism,
centralization, or authoritarianism, and that its necessary
implication was the overcoming of capitalism through the full
extension of democracy to the economic sphere and beyond;
--they forget that the collective consciousness of a people is itself
constructed, and open to growth and change. The word, socialism, may
be contaminated with odious connotations. However, put to people
whether they would like to live in a "cooperative commonwealth,"
released from cutthroat competition, where basic needs are socially
guaranteed and where they can freely develop their individuality in a
rich network of associations--and see whether their allergic response
was to the word, socialism, or to the ideas behind it.
So why don't we just call the goal a cooperative commonwealth, as many
democratic socialists effectively did during the last century? Simple:
because the idea is "ecosocialism," and not just socialism, and
because the term, "eco-cooperative commonwealth," goes nowhere. For we
are at a launching point, that demands the creation of something
really, radically new, a "next-epoch" socialism. The focus of
"first-epoch" socialism was labor. Ecosocialism must be open to nature
along with labor, which is to say, must take a radically ecological
form only dimly perceived by the architects of first-epoch socialism.
The prefix, "eco," therefore, is not just a figure of speech, but
indicates a qualitatively new project. To foreclose this exploration
by recycling objections to first-epoch socialism is plain intellectual
laziness.
The breakup of first-epoch socialism left a unipolar world and created
the ground for next epoch socialism, ecosocialism. Because capital is
now global, it calls forth global resistance, in two senses--from all
over the world, and to all of its forms. Socialism is the word for
that which sets itself as the surpassing of capitalism. If you believe
that capital is a cancer, then socialism emerges as the logic of
overcoming capital; and if you recognize the cancer as afflicting
global ecologies, and understand the failings of first-epoch
socialism, then you embark on the building of ecosocialism.
This is what stands beyond the necessary but limited confrontation
with capital's corporate armies. It is what makes ecosocialism an
affirmative project beyond the politics of resentment.
It is also radically difficult to envision, given how mired our world
is in the ways of capital. That is why a degree of utopian thought
must be integral to ecosocialism, so that we do not rest with simple
reformist extrapolation from the present. Yet there are also
principles of transformation that need to be kept in mind:
1. Ecosocialism, being socialism, must incorporate basic changes in
the class structure. Yes, it must include the notion of public
ownership of productive resources. The earth should not be the
property of the few, but the collective body of society. And society
will not consist of a propertied class ruling over a mass of
disinherited peons who only have their labor power for sale on the
capitalist market--because the capitalist market will no longer exist.
For this reason, ecosocialism takes its stand with all efforts to
empower and liberate labor around the world. The realization of these
goals will require tremendous ingenuity and creativity. But unless the
goals are articulated, we have nothing to aim for.
2. Ecosocialism, being ecological, must interpret its surpassing of
capital in terms of the "limits to growth," that is, it cannot, as did
traditional socialism, try to maximize the productive forces. This
engages a thoroughgoing transformation so that we live lightly and
ecologically on the earth. The core principle is to set the goal of
transforming quantitative relations to qualitative ones, and away from
treating people and other living creatures as mere objects, to
regarding them as active, self-constituting subjects. As an integral
part of this, ecosocialism will attend to the need structures of the
population, in order to develop a society beyond consumerism. One does
this, in general, through the development of active powers of
self-definition, since the essence of consumerism is creating
passively manipulated characters who crave fulfillment through
commodities.
3. While large-scale enterprises will remain in ecosocialism, its
basic principle is antithetical to the centralization of power.
Ecosocialism does not dissolve the state, but its guiding principle is
the full democratization of public life. We should learn to think of
democracy and ecological relations as two sides of the same process.
3. Because these goals are so remote, it is essential that we spell
out intermediate steps that are practicable in the here and now while
yet moving society in the direction of ecosocialism. I would call this
the principle of Prefiguration; it comprises the set of transforms
which comprise the actual stuff of political life and the content of
campaigns and platforms. There are two tightly connected sides to
this:
First, everything that builds what is called "civil society" is
prefigurative of ecosocialism. The fatal statism and bureaucratic
ossification of first-epoch socialisms were largely the result of
having to begin the revolution under chaotic conditions with a
population ill-equipped to democratically self-manage the economy and
society. In the prefigurative phase of ecosocialism--which is to say,
in the here and now--a prime task is to educate the population into
the ways of autonomous development. Obviously, this places a great
premium on the educational process itself and the struggles for
democratic media. But it is equally the ecosocialist ground of
struggles against racism and sexism, for the rights of gays and other
alternative sexualites, for the rights as well of migrant communities
and for the dissolution of the prison-industrial complex. The goal of
a socialism that is non-authoritarian and fully democratic is integral
with the need to overcome all forms of injustice and the mutilation of
human beings. Those forms of personal empowerment that go no further
than the shallow and conformist schemata of identity politics, are
here revealed as necessary prefigurations of an ecological socialism.
We fight for human rights not only because these are good in
themselves, but because human beings so empowered form the ground of a
society capable of self-management and democratically able to resist
authoritarian and bureaucratic forms, i.e., centralism.
Second, and closely related within the productive processes that
underlie the making of the world, we prefiguratively attend to what
Marx called the "use-values" of commodities. Here is where the
qualitative dimension is anchored, and where, therefore, the struggle
to break down capital is lodged at an everyday level, one that
involves aesthetic, spiritual and communal dimensions that have been
suppressed or distorted under capitalism. This, broadly speaking,
opens onto the whole set of green goals such as taking on the
polluters, stopping the introduction of genetically modified
organisms, fighting for worker's safety and health care as a human
right, and, of course, for organic farms and community gardens--but it
does so in the context of a comprehensive attack on the capitalist
system, which it identifies as the common source of these threats to
the integrity of human beings and nature.
To me, the green parties themselves are prefigurative of ecosocialism,
since they arise as the particular political reaction to capital's
ecological crisis. But there is no inevitability to prefiguration, and
whether that connection gets developed depends upon the emergence of a
consciousness within the green movement that ecosocialism is in fact
its destiny. This depends in part upon whether the ingrained prejudice
against all forms of socialism can be overcome. That's a decision for
the greens themselves to make. But whatever greens decide, there is a
historical logic unfolding. To paraphrase the great Marxist
revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, a choice lies before us: ecosocialism or
barbarism--or worse, ecocatastrophe.
Joel Kovel
Candidate for President, Green Party
To Build an Ecological Society beyond Capitalism
For the People For the Earth
www.greenplace.org
www.greens.org/ny/kovel/
858-457-5616 jko...@prodigy.net
8889 Caminito Plaza Centro #7204
La Jolla, CA 92122
g_d...@my-deja.com
"Stephen R. Diamond" <steph...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> With Flude's disruptive tactics out of the way,
I think you have confused 'disruption' with 'debate' and
'disagreement'.
If that's a problem for you - tough.
[banal stuff snipped]
> Recently I "reviewed" the LM article on the mass slaughter of the
Jews.
> The subtext of that article, I contended, was an extremely veiled
> version of "holocaust denial" and anti-semitism.
All you need for your case is evidence and motive. What's the
better that the former is lacking and the latter rests on some
lunatic conspiracy theory?
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Gerry the Gerbil
<kma...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>Louis N Proyect wrote,
>"Most Greens are opposed to socialism . . . "
>
>Do you have any empirical date to back up this blanket assertion, or is this
>just a stroke of wild impressionism?
I'm not sure what sort of "empirical data" you could produce to
validate or reject that assertion. However, from my experience, as
someone very active in the 80s peace and labour movements in the UK,
the former of which was strongly influenced by Green ideologies, I
would certainly agree with Louis. Most Greens I've come across believe
in an ideology directly descended from liberalism, which can easily
mutateinto direct reaction. Much Green literature I've read, and
Greens I've spoken to, emphasises the importance of the individual and
relegates class to a side issue, or even denies its existence as a
meaningful social entity.
Sure, many radical Greens, such as George Monbiot in the UK, put the
boot in on corporations for destroying both the natural and *human*
environment, and they support the campaigns of local peoples against
corporate activities. I haven't, though, seen in their writings any
serious critique of capitalism as an inherently destructive force -
the impression I get is that they want to see a gentler,
environmentally-sensitive, no-growth form of capitalism.
Neither have I seen any mention of class, or the role that the working
class can play in combatting corporate destruction of natural and
human environments (and it's usually working class communities that
suffer the brunt of environmental degradation and pollution, whereas
the middle classes, who pontificate so piously about Green issues, can
move out of affected areas). On the contrary, I've often seen very
anti-working class statements in print, such as the standard
accusation that we are all in the West guilty of environmental
degradation because we drive cars or because we aren't "Green
consumers" - this sort of victim-blaming, apart from making my blood
boil, directly accuses working class people, as individuals, of being
environmental despoilers, and displaces the blame from where it really
lies, with corporations and the inherently destructive nature of
capitalism.
>In my experience most Greens have a
>militantly anticorporate, anticapitalist outlook--perhaps not sufficiently
>steeped in the history of internecine Marxist warfare for your taste, but
>certainly receptive to the insights of socialists.
Yes, Bill, I'm sure you're right, but I'm sure also that most Greens
aren't socialists. Most Green ideologies that I know of stem from
liberalism, and you don't have to be a shit-hot Marxist to see how
liberalism can quickly become reaction - as the old saying goes,
scratch a liberal to find a fascist.
>To write them off, as you
>and others on this newsgroup are apparently doing, is suicidal.
Oh, Bill, Louis has never written Greens off - on the contrary, all
the stuff I've seen him post has been to do with co-opting Greens, and
Green ideas, into socialist movements. That's one of the main reasons
why he's been subject to continual attacks by the RCP/LMs gruesome
twosome, trying to paint him as some incorrigible Earth Firster.
>There are
>millions of potential Green Party voters who are disgusted with the
>depradations of the free market--yet you treat the movement as some sort of
>tightly organized political current rather than what it is--a steadily
>rising, increasingly militant wave of opposition among masses of Americans
>to the destructive prerogatives of big capital. Socialists should be seeking
>to join with this movement, to give it direction and leadership, rather than
>writing it off.
Well, revolutionary socialists of whatever stripe can't not take
account of Green feeling, but as an anarchist I've always argued that
socialism is green in essence. Before anyone rushes to flame me, I'll
try to explain. What I mean is that socialism stands for the
productive use of natural resources for the benefit of all and is thus
inherently 'environmentally-friendly' (to use the Greenie term), and
that many of the criticisms levelled by Greens against capitalism have
been part and parcel of socialist thought since its inception.
What socialists can't, in all conscience, do, is to uncritically join
in with the Green crusade as it currently stands, because the
currently dominant Green ideologies are liberal and, sometimes,
explicitly anti-socialist and anti-working class. For instance, could
you see Greens supporting a miners' strike? They'd more likely call
for the complete closure of the mine as a source of pollution.
I get your point, Bill, but I do think that socialists of whatever
sort need to maintain a critical distance from Greenism. Still, it'll
be interesting to see how this discussion pans out.
Keep on munchin'
Gerry
(gerry....@usa.net)
William Kaufman
Gerry the Gerbil <munc...@sunflower.seeds> wrote
>
> Yes, Bill, I'm sure you're right, but I'm sure also that most Greens
> aren't socialists. Most Green ideologies that I know of stem from
> liberalism, and you don't have to be a shit-hot Marxist to see how
> liberalism can quickly become reaction - as the old saying goes,
> scratch a liberal to find a fascist.
First of all, Gerry, your account of the Greens is just as impressionistic
and anecdotal as Louis's. A few months ago I posted the programs of various
Green parties around the world, and they were all remarkably similar to the
Transitional Program, including nationalizing industry, 30/40, etc. That's a
much more objective indicator than your casual personal encounters and beery
discussions.
Moreover, the point of left politics is not to form an elite club of
equally pure coreligionists--it's to seize every opportunity to expand the
influence of socialist theory and practice. You're taking the same sectarian
tack as others on this newsgroup--treating the Green movement as a clearly
defined, ideologically rigid tendency, like some Trot sect (which it is
not), rather than an amorphous mass movement with enormous potential to
expand the fight against capitalism (which it is). By assuming the former
attitude rather than the latter, you are applying an fastidious ideological
litmus test and, finding most Greens insufficiently militant, recommending
excommunication from the socialist church; the latter appraisal calls for
the active participation by socialist in the Green movement, seeing it as a
fertile ground not only for advancing a socialist perspective but also for
helping to impede the prerogatives of big capital.
>
> Oh, Bill, Louis has never written Greens off - on the contrary, all
> the stuff I've seen him post has been to do with co-opting Greens, and
> Green ideas, into socialist movements. That's one of the main reasons
> why he's been subject to continual attacks by the RCP/LMs gruesome
> twosome, trying to paint him as some incorrigible Earth Firster.
He has defended the idea of environmentalism in theory, but in the post in
question he was writing environmentalists off in practice.
> Well, revolutionary socialists of whatever stripe can't not take
> account of Green feeling, but as an anarchist I've always argued that
> socialism is green in essence. Before anyone rushes to flame me, I'll
> try to explain. What I mean is that socialism stands for the
> productive use of natural resources for the benefit of all and is thus
> inherently 'environmentally-friendly' (to use the Greenie term), and
> that many of the criticisms levelled by Greens against capitalism have
> been part and parcel of socialist thought since its inception.
Agreed.
> What socialists can't, in all conscience, do, is to uncritically join
> in with the Green crusade as it currently stands, because the
> currently dominant Green ideologies are liberal and, sometimes,
> explicitly anti-socialist and anti-working class. For instance, could
> you see Greens supporting a miners' strike? They'd more likely call
> for the complete closure of the mine as a source of pollution.
I'm certainly not advocating liquidating the socialist movement into the
Green movement. I'm talking about critical support and constructive
engagement--united action fronts, electoral coalitions, etc. The Nader
campaign is a potential windfall for socialists who are tactically adroit
enough to recognize it. In the context of American left politics (nearly
nonexistent), an independent left campaign with an overt anticapitalist
program is a huge step forward, one that socialists spurn at the price of
their own continued isolation and impotence.
> I get your point, Bill, but I do think that socialists of whatever
> sort need to maintain a critical distance from Greenism. Still, it'll
> be interesting to see how this discussion pans out.
For an excellent analysis of these issues, on both a theoretical and
practical basis, see the position papers of the United Secretariat of the
Fourth International at http://www.ualberta.ca/~peterm/eco-Ffi.htm.
Stephen R. Diamond
> I think you have confused 'disruption' with 'debate' and
> 'disagreement'.
>
> If that's a problem for you - tough.
Talk big, Dale, BUT LOOKS TO ME IT WAS "TOUGH" FOR FLUDE AND LM HERE!
Stephen R. Diamond
Gerry the Gerbil
<kma...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>Gerry the Gerbil <munc...@sunflower.seeds> wrote
>>
>> Yes, Bill, I'm sure you're right, but I'm sure also that most Greens
>> aren't socialists. Most Green ideologies that I know of stem from
>> liberalism, and you don't have to be a shit-hot Marxist to see how
>> liberalism can quickly become reaction - as the old saying goes,
>> scratch a liberal to find a fascist.
>
>First of all, Gerry, your account of the Greens is just as impressionistic
>and anecdotal as Louis's. A few months ago I posted the programs of various
>Green parties around the world, and they were all remarkably similar to the
>Transitional Program, including nationalizing industry, 30/40, etc.
Not being a Trot, I'm afraid I'm unaware of the content of the TP. If
you've saved your old post then please repost it, either here or to me
personally - it'll be interesting to see. I've had a quick look at the
Italian Green Federation website (www.verdi.it) as they're one of the
more radical Green groupings in Europe, but was unable to find their
official 'programme'. I know that they've usually sided, in the Camera
and Senato, with the Left, often with the Communists against the
centre-left D'Alema coalition, and to their credit they were strongly
against the Kosovo war. From regular reading of the Italian bourgeois
press, though, I can't remember ever thinking that they were other
than radical liberals. I'm happy to be proved wrong, though.
>That's a
>much more objective indicator than your casual personal encounters and beery
>discussions.
Ah, well, I wasn't talking about "casual personal encounters" and
"beery discussions", our Bill (although I've had plenty of the latter
in my time :*)), but about the people I used to meet every day of the
week, particularly in the peace movement. To be sure, my personal
experience may be out of date, and for all I know Green activists
might have undergone a Damascene conversion to socialism, but in my
more active days I have to say that most Greens were of the liberal
persuasion. Of course, that could have been because of the intense
hostility of nearly all reformist and revolutionary socialist groups
towards Green ideas.
> Moreover, the point of left politics is not to form an elite club of
>equally pure coreligionists--it's to seize every opportunity to expand the
>influence of socialist theory and practice.
Oh, man - you, a Trotskyist, are telling an anarchist this? LOL! :)
>You're taking the same sectarian
>tack as others on this newsgroup--treating the Green movement as a clearly
>defined, ideologically rigid tendency, like some Trot sect (which it is
>not),
No, absolutely not - I know damn well that the Green movement is as
diverse as the socialist movement, and what distinguishes it is
exactly that there isn't a central core of belief or ideology. Indeed,
most Greenies make a virtue of this.
>rather than an amorphous mass movement with enormous potential to
>expand the fight against capitalism (which it is).
Well, maybe, but I remain to be convinced. As I said, most Green
writing I've read is highly critical of the current form of
globalised, corporate capitalism, but doesn't critique capitalism per
se. Indeed, for some currents there's the belief that the market can
be beneficial to the environment, if capitalists can be made to bear
all costs of production, including externalities, and if natural
resources are given appropriate economic value - I've seen and heard
this argument many a time on radio/tv/press. I certainly know that the
UK Green Party thinks along these lines, because I've heard its
spokespeople say so many a time. (Mind you, as parties go it's pretty
insignificant, as the UK electoral system means it hasn't a chance of
gaining even a single parliamentary seat.)
>By assuming the former
>attitude rather than the latter, you are applying an fastidious ideological
>litmus test and, finding most Greens insufficiently militant, recommending
>excommunication from the socialist church;
Bill, you're putting words into my mouth - I'm doing no such thing.
There's nothing fastidious about me, mate, I can tell you - I'm pretty
catholic in my tastes. Hell, if I'm willing to have rational
discussion with Trotskyists, traditionally bitter enemies of
anarchists and poles apart in our conception of socialist society, you
can hardly call me "fastidious" ;-)
No, I don't call for "excommunication" from any socialist "church".
From my subjective experience, and from what I've read, I don't think
that most Greens, and most ideological currents within Greenery, are
or have ever been socialist, so were never in the church to begin
with. They're pretty fucking militant - just go to any anti-roads
action and that's obvious enough - but as far as I can see they're not
socialist.
>> What socialists can't, in all conscience, do, is to uncritically join
>> in with the Green crusade as it currently stands, because the
>> currently dominant Green ideologies are liberal and, sometimes,
>> explicitly anti-socialist and anti-working class. For instance, could
>> you see Greens supporting a miners' strike? They'd more likely call
>> for the complete closure of the mine as a source of pollution.
>
>I'm certainly not advocating liquidating the socialist movement into the
>Green movement. I'm talking about critical support and constructive
>engagement--united action fronts, electoral coalitions, etc. The Nader
>campaign is a potential windfall for socialists who are tactically adroit
>enough to recognize it. In the context of American left politics (nearly
>nonexistent), an independent left campaign with an overt anticapitalist
>program is a huge step forward, one that socialists spurn at the price of
>their own continued isolation and impotence.
In the US situation, where socialist politics is moribund and no mass
class-based Left political organisations exist, you may have a point -
I don't know, as I live in the UK. I can see that, in your situation,
the small US socialist movement could gain from hitching up with the
mass groundswell of Green opinion.
FWIW, tactical coalitions between Greens and socialists often are
created over specific campaigns - this has certainly been the case in
Italy - and I don't think anyone, other than the rabid anti-Greens of
the RCP/LM, has a serious problem with that, in the same way as
socialists can ally with liberals in specific instances. In any but
the short run, though, I can't see that socialism and Greenery have
much in common, because the fundamental ideological paradigms, as far
as I can see, are poles apart. Again, though, I'd be happy to be
proved wrong.
g_d...@my-deja.com
Yeah, but unlike you most people can take it without
whining - or taking pleasure in curbs on free-speech of
our political opponents.
So cut the apron strings, you big wuss...
Gerry the Gerbil
"big wuss"?! You've been watching too much Buffy, our Gary. Christ,
you're such a kid - this is the adult world, matey, not some Billy
Bunter comic. And I've told you before - as someone who's voluntary
enslaved himself and his thoughts to a sect run by a minor Sociology
lecturer, you're in no position to lecture others about "free speech".
Hunter H. Watson
Stephen R. Diamond <steph...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> With Flude's disruptive tactics out of the way, maybe we can form a
> dispassionate judgment of the LM thesis that there exists in he US and
> England a "culture of fear" that is reactionary in character.
Have I missed something here? How is Justin "out of the way"?
Perhaps uch will assist me.
H.