Date: Mon, 04 Oct 1999 11:12:27 -0400
From: Chuck0 <chuck-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: Fwd: anarchism vs Marxism


>From another list. Too priceless not to forward...

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: anarchism vs Marxism
Date: Mon, 04 Oct 1999 10:42:14 -0400
From: "Charles Brown" <CharlesB-AT-CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>
Reply-To: lbo-talk-AT-lists.panix.com
To: <Lbo-talk-AT-lists.panix.com>

A forward,

CB


((((((((((((((




I spent five days in MontrTal at the end of September to speak at a 
broad left conference organized by the Concordia University Students 
Union (which was actually one of the best conferences I've been to in 
some time)... also speaking was Mitchel Cohen (Red Balloon 
Collective, formerly of the "Independent Caucus" of the Students' for 
a Democratic Society), who I had a fun time chatting with, even if we 
disagreed on many things.

I came home to Vancouver with a bunch of Mitchel's Red Balloon 
Collective pamphlets (largely 'cause they were super-cheap), 
including several from his "Zen-Marxism" series.

Earlier this evening, I was sitting in my home with a bunch of 
largely-anarchist friends who dropped by to watch a film with me, and 
one of them picked up a copy of Cohen's pamphlet "'What is to be 
Undone?' or, How to Spot a Vanguardist at Twenty Yards" and read 
aloud the following passage, which elicited great howls of laughter 
from both the anarchists and the marxists in the room.. thought I'd 
share:

  An incorrigible anarchist was on her deathbed when she announced 
that she'd become a marxist. Her affinity group was shocked! They 
spraypainted slogans all over her room, threw rocks through the 
windows, slamdanced to blasting MDC, and paraded around her bed with 
a black flag. Finally, one of her lovers asked: "After all these 
years and all we've been through, how could you become a marxist?"

  "Well," said the turncoat, "my time is up. So I says to myself, if 
anyone's going to die, let it be one of them marxist bastards".