From: "chris wright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
Subject: Re: AUT: Re: Re: Re: Critique of Harry Cleaver in the Weekly Worker
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 21:52:59 -0600


Uh huh.  Ok.

Base and superstructure.  Social imperialism.  Lots of assertions but the
only actual analysis I saw that was not rhetoric was the quote of Loren
Goldner's piece.  Maybe its just the selection you posted.  Maybe its the
droning.  Sorry if this seems bored, but if one wants to check the history
of Trotskyism in the same period I doubt that you can claim better for it.
Rather, internationally, one would largely have to claim worse, esp. in
relation to the SI and SoB, ICO in France, but also to James' influenced
groups.

Have you ever studied up on the group Sojourner Truth?  They are interesting
in many ways and were self-consciously influenced by James and Italian
operaismo (to what extent they had contact with it except through the Hot
Autumn of 1969.)  They also had a significant, for a Left group, influence
in Chicago's working class.  Of course, finding material on them is not
easy...  Even I don't have much but I bet that Noel Ignatiev, who was one of
the leading members of the group, does.  E-mail Race Traitor if you want to
make a more reasonable assessment of James' legacy beyond James' own
choices.  Also, you are a bit over-selective in your appropriation of
Goldner's article, since Goldner himself would have rather less than nothing
to do with Trotskyism, which cannot even figure out what to make of Lenin's
most interesting stuff, such as the philosophical notebooks.  So whatever
Goldner's criticisms of James, it is from the vantage point that Facing
Reality was a genuine leap beyond the Trotskyism it came from.

I only raise this counterposition to Trotskyism because it is the dismal
melange of intellectual, political, and moral bankruptcy which you will
inevitably uphold against all else.

Cheers,
Chris

ps I was unfair to Goldner in a recent post.  His newly-posted exchange with
Aufheben is quite interesting and subtle, although the exchange itself is
quite snippy in tone.  And his reading of Capital, whatever its validity (no
opinion as I am not in a position to engage it at that depth), is
nonetheless very subtle and provocative.




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