From: "Peter Jovanovic" <peterzoran-AT-hotmail.com> Subject: Re: AUT: RE: Re 'Hardt-Negri "Empire": a critique by someone who purports to be marxist but won't read the book' Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 16:32:35 +1000 hi all Angela wrote: >Leninists, both on the net and elsewhere, are busy segueing their >'anti-pomo' hysteria into an 'anti-autonomist' barrage. Obviously, Proyect > >intends to provide the catchcries for such. And that's the reason that > >this discussion has little to do with the book. Not only b/c, as Jon >noted, >everyone here has their own criticisms of _Empire_ and/or Negri; >but b/c >that's really not the issue. The stakes are not the book, but the >movements >around Seattle, Melb, G/berg, etc. We might expect textual >fidelity to be >a condition of anything that purports to be a "critique" of >some text; but >for Proyect, it's an occasion to intervene into a debate >that's occuring >elsewhere. The hook is _Empire_, because it's just been >published and has >received some attention, and without that hook, LP would >simply not be able >to accomplish the degree of circulation of his "critique" that he hopes >for. here in Australia the ISO/SWP has taken what some have called an autonomist turn. presumably because of the growing influence of autonomist ideas. and it's been somewhat successful for them, they've recruited a few people who were in the Sydney based autonomistish group Love and Rage. of course their 'autonomism' is only a recruiting trick. they have recently published at least one article attacking autonomists after ignoring them for twenty years. the danger for them is that autonomism is a marxism that is not just an academic 'movement' it also has growing influence among activists. i'd say the ISO are the Trot group best placed to recruit out of the 'anti-capitalist movement' as they call it. they tend to have a younger rank and file than most of the orthodox trot groups and don't have the baggage of support for Cuba or other remaining Stalinist regimes. in Prague they were the only Trots in force and were noticeably younger than all the other Leninist groups. of course their appalling behaviour would have hopefully turned off anyone who came across them. i've been subjecting myself to the Worker's Power (orthodox split from the ISO circa 1978) website a bit lately and they seem to have conceded the ground in the Socialist Alliances and union bureaucracies to the ISO and other bigger Trot groups. their current kick seems to be trying to appeal to the streetfighting element by a detailed critique of particular 'black bloc' actions. instead of 'mindless' property destruction they want organised fighting squads who just incidentally would be under their command. 'damn those masked anarchists they're just too anarchic' is what they are basically saying. pete _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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