Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 11:49:26 +0100 (MET) From: Harald Beyer-Arnesen <haraldba-AT-sn.no> Subject: Karl and counter-revolution Hello people, fellow workers tired of being so... The discussions around whether or not to exclude Karl from this list, which I have followed with interest, whirled up some fascinating themes, and also much bewilderment on my part on the nature of this new means of communication. I was about to respond when Joshua withdrew his proposal. With some doubts I have decided to post what I had started writing, mainly because I never felt comfortable with ostracizing people, treating them as thin air*. Though I can see that this might be the only way to survive on the net, I've always preferred confronting differences, even if there is always the question how much time and energy to spend doing this. I include it here more as a general statement, should the issue be raised again further down the line, than as a suggestion for something to be acted on here and now, since this discussion seems to have already reached some kind of diverse conclusion. My whole line of argument might also be proven invalid by the very fact of trying to apply something to electronic communication derived from face-to-face situations. *(Though sending people "to Coventry" often is a necessary approach towards scabs, it takes a enormous psychological strength to follow up, and you often end up using most of your time and energy controlling your fellow workers. And I am not in anyway suggesting that Karl is a scab.) Any way this is what I had started writing, immediately after I will continue by commenting on something Bob (Robert Miller ) wrote. "But first a general statement to Karl: As I see it you have asked for what you are now getting. Maybe if this was not such a "virtual world" we could solve it by going out and drinking some beers, and having some good laughs, and I would probably ask you, what in the hell are you up to? This is not an ideological issue. No one has any _right_ to be part of this or any other party (in the meaning social gathering). If you attack people you might expect that they react, one of the ways being to follow you to the door (the technicalities of this being another question). This is common sense in the real world. If you prefer to call this Stalinism and Nazism, then most workers are Stalinist and Nazis. "So this is my position. Though I would much prefer if you tried to explain what you thought to get out of joining this list in the first place, your views on the future society and the ways to get there. I still wonder why you are so afraid to state your positions. But if you are not able to do this without insulting people, it is my view that you should be excluded from "this party", for no other reason than that I am sick and tired of the all to common practice of using these new means of communication for advancing egos and launching personal assaults." Now to some issues raised by Bob (Robert Miller). You wrote: "So who doesn't want to 'expel' him. Oddly enough, those of us who call ourselves communists, and hence believe in working class political organisation and going along with that the ability to expel people...." Is there anybody on this list who does not consider themselves as communists? As for working class political organization, who denies the need for that? Though I would prefer talking about such organizations in plural, and there is always the question of what role they should play, you are perfectly right, such organizations imply "the ability to expel people". That the aut-op-sy list of course is more of an informal meeting place, is all the more reason for expecting of people that they behave themselves. You wrote: "Meanwhile, politics that at least some of us regard as being counter-revolutionary (or close to it) are regarded as fine. Like supporting trade unionism, national liberationism - when couched in the populist language of the zapatistas, syndicalism, radical liberalism (to judge from some of the re-posts) ........ But after all aut-op-sy is a discussion list." Maybe you should be a little more cautious, or at least specific, when you apply words as "counter-revolutionary". The Subversion- group, of which you are part and is a project I can sympathize with, obviously supports "trade-unionism" in one form or another, as its support for the struggle of the Merseyside dockers clearly shows (and they are a union by any definition of the word.) Nobody on this list as far as I know deny the role unions have played and continue to play as a "counter-revolutionary" instrument. But to say that unions by definition are "counter-revolutionary", really amounts to saying next to nothing, or saying that the working class is by definition "counter-revolutionary" because workers are compelled to reproduce capitalism to survive. Workers join unions for specific reasons, and those reasons will not go away if by some magic unions should disappear over night. The question of a "counter-revolutionary reformism" is something that exists within the working class as a whole, and concerns the decisions workers make on a day to day basis, and will not be done away with by applying other labels to define ones activities. Whether one defines those in terms of revolutionary syndicalism, workers councils, or a political organization of workers, one end up having to find ways to confront the day to day issues. This question is obviously more complicated than outlined here, but we will not get any further if we continue hiding behind overall definitions. As for the "national liberationism - when couched in the populist language of the zapatistas," there obviously exist different views towards the zapatistas on this list. Even if I prefer to take a sceptical stand towards FZLN/EZLN, also because of my limited knowledge of the phenomena, I am far from sure if it can be reduced to a national liberation movement. I even find the question at this moment of history as being of secondary importance, as what happens in Chiapas to a large extent will be decided by what takes place or not among workers in other parts of Mexico and North America, as FZLN/EZLN is not likely to have the strength of becoming a government, even if they so wished. (They may of course in the future merge with the existing one.) You wrote: "1. At first he wanted to have autonomist marxism defined for him. Frankly, he was probably over-optimistic in this, and to my best knowledge has failed to get much of a reply. Maybe the list is too diverse for that, maybe the autonomists on it either won't or can't define themselves." Most likely the answer to this is that Karl did not enter this list by asking of a definition of autonomist marxism but by attacking Harry Cleaver for being an "academic marxiologist", so at the point when he did come to ask the question, most people probably did not think him genuinely interested. Another thing that reflects on what seems to me to be the overall viewpoint of the diversity called autonomist marxism, which you may or may not like, that just as they tend to emphasise the power of workers rather than that of capital, it is my personal impression that "they" also tend to see it as a waste of time to enter into discussions with people obviously hostile, which is certainly a break with what has been the history of the left since it emerged. And yes, I do know that Subversion does not define itself as part of the left. I have no problems appreciating the critique of the Zapatistas coming >from Sylvie Deneuve and Charles Reeve, and it would be very interesting to see the reply from Cleaver which I have understood is forthcoming, but it is my general feeling that one of the main differences between autonomist marxist and groups like Subversion, Exchanges et Mouvement and so forth, and also my own positions, often is one of emphasis, if you concentrate on raising a critique of the elements in a struggle pointing in the direction of recuperation or the ones possibly leading beyond that. That said, I had great problems swallowing the following passage from the Massimo De Angelis' interview with Cleaver: "Everywhere that organization fails to achieve the circulation of struggle, it fails, whether in a tiny groupescule in a single city or in a region or nation. The strength of relatively small groups such as the Palestinians, or the black freedom movements in Southern Africa, or the revolutionaries in Nicaragua or El Salvador, etc., has always been, in large part, due to their ability to build networks of alliance to circulate their struggles beyond their specific locales to other groups in other parts of the world. Which is precisely why in every case capital's strategy has been to cut them off, with trade and financial boycotts or travel restrictions, to isolate them--so that they can be destroyed." If Cleaver is thinking of organizations like PLO, ANC, the Sandinistas etc, those are to me exactly the kind of organizations which never had the potentiality of going beyond capitalism, being part of the problem rather than the solution. But should I disregard the rest of the interview because of this one sentence? And even in this passage I get his point. Besides, within the Sandinistas movement there may have been currents at some point with a possibility of developing in another direction, within PLO I very much doubt this ever being the case. These are my personal impressions ... not the one and only truth. Just felt the need for a blow-out. By the way, I have no problems living with the messages from Karl, and I certainly will not delete them. If I ever go to Ireland I might look him up, and ask him to share some Guiness at the nearest pub. Hope I have not caused to much of a stir-up? So long, Harald in solidarity, Harald Beyer-Arnesen haraldba-AT-sn.no --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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