Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 12:41:54 +0100 (MET)
Subject: M-G: Re: M-I: List Sociology



>Bob Malecki,
>
>"...The problem is politics and which classes and which parties that 
>"represent some of this stuff and much more. And naturally which side one 
"is on
>in the class struggle not only with humble and noble ideas but in 
>"concrete politics.

Bob Sheetz replied;

>It seems to me proletarian class-consciousness/loyalty and righteous
>revolutionary praxis are only possible on the basis of these two core
>postulates. 

Ok fine!

Bob S. continues;
>
>It is only from a strong conviction of the value and 
>dignity of one's labor that he positively embraces his class identity;
>finds community with those in the same circumstance; and resolutely resists
>its appropriation by capital.  Otherwise, as is actually the
>case, it is a degrading identity;...unions, the paltry solidarity of the
>mean...requiring the mercenary services of labor-thugs
>and party pols even to recover an undignified (narrow interest, beggar thy
>neighbor, etc) moiety.  In "liberal" society (this is especially true of the
>stalinist variety)Work is held in disesteem, for losers, drones, etc.;  quality
>people all find niches in the bureaucracy (private as well as public);
>handsomely paid; and never break a sweat. Until "labor" (i.e.globally,
>head/hand) is "glorified" or privileged, as, for example, the warrior caste in
>medieval society; and, correlatively, the party/bureaucracy caste 
apprehended as
>derivitive, the proletariate will not rise to become a class for itself; will
>not assume the task of creating the next epoch of Western maturation. And all
>overthrows of capital, "revolutions," as the Russian, will prove mere
>re-iterations of a cycle of bourgeois history.

The above is a bit empirist for me, but also a lack of understanding the 
neccessity of taking sides in the class struggle. For example your talk 
anbout "labor thugs" and
"bureaucrats" is just not enough, nor always right! Sometimes I could very 
well see myself standing on the same side of the barricades as the so called 
"labor" thugs and "bureaucrats"--for example a strike however this does not 
mean giving these people political support.

And this stuff about "medival society" and "warrior caste" is to say the 
least a bit far fetched and empirist in the sense of pasting the struggles 
of changing society (a very violent process historically) on to the modern 
struggle for the proletariat to take its role as the only revolutionary 
class which can, in power, organise the world in a higher form of society. 
As if living history and struggle and progressive change can take another 
path. How, will we convince the bougeois capitalist and imperialist ruling 
class of giving up their priviledges in the present system. Or do you think 
they are prepared to hand it over peacefully and freely? I doubt it very 
much....  

Bob M. wrote
>"Especially "this sacrality of life" sounds a bit religous to me....But the
>"problem is that it is the bougeois that is constantly trying to kill me in 
"one
>way or another. So obviously turning the other cheek after all of "their
>historic crimes is not only ridiculous but utopian.

Bob S replied;
>It is, as you indicate, the essential nature of capital that it exploits and
>devastates life (in all forms indistinguishably) both routinely, its relentless
>exactions on human labor and the environment, and cataclysmically, the recent
>Gulf War slaughter; it is in this perspective precisely "the Midas touch" 
curse.
>And its action is subjective as well - "all that is solid"; it kills higher
>order life forms, as community and family, by subvening the the delicate
>world-myth systems in which they breathe; as Black labor and culture has been
>trivialized (sports), commercialized and vulgarized almost beyond belief; and
>Euro, with abortion, abondoning all for the bourgeois paradise of unfettered
>egoism, has arrived at the ne plus ultra, the killing of moral signification,
>radical nihilism (the postmodern thesis).

OK! I can buy this in a general sense.
>
>In contrast, a proletarian culture creates, imitates God/nature,
>augments life and valorizes it.  Not a pacifism at all (I didn't
>read Dead Man Walking as an anti capital punishment tract, but
>as a Greek tragedy, showing the aweful significance of killing),
>it supplies the righteousness of the final act of revolutionary
>praxis; dialectically, it is impelled to subsume the regnant sacrilege, 
>the killer regime, capitalism, in the holy cause of creating and establishing
>the moral absolutes: the dignity of life/labor theory of value.

But not this. Because the ruling class is never gonna give it up without a 
fight. Thus it will have to be taken from them. I do not think turning the 
other cheek or waiting for some natural evolvement will solve the problems. 
Only a superior armed proletariat both politically and with guns in hand can 
storm the gates of heaven siezing political power and getting on with the 
historically revolutionary task of reorganising society. First in the form 
of transitional states and futher on in the form of Communist society.
>
>And BTW, that is why Castro's papal obeisance is so despicable, the Pope
>having given the nod to the death squads in Central America, Argentina,
>...

>Anyway, like I say, absent these "sticking places" seems to me revolutions
>always end up betraying the blood that was payed so heroically...and the game,
>not having been worth the candle

Unfortunately poor and working class people can not just hop off the 
spinning wheel. In fact niether can you. The point being that despite all 
the historical betrayals because of bankrupt leadership our future points 
irrevocably in one direction. Who rules the bougeoisie or the proletariat. 
None of this top down stuff about historical betrayals can change that. It 
is both impressionist and crazy to believe that the struggle of classes is 
determined by whether or not it is worth lighting the candle. The candle is 
burning all the time!
>
Bob M wrote;
>"Unfortunately Nader and Chomsky both who think that there ideas are both 
>"noble and human can not draw a fairly simple class line. Thus their 
>""people's politics especially Nader is more based on middle class people's 
>" Thus his politics represent reforming a system which is unreformable and "has
>always one foot, if not both in the camp of the working classes deadly "enemy.

Bob S. replied;
>I agree, their programmes are nought, but still, their critiques are
>pretty thorough...pretty subversive in their own right...which is
>more than you can say about....  I don't agree that they have
>a foot in the bourgeois camp (in US the "middle-class" is the
>working class); and I can't think of any persons more genuinely hated by the
>ruling class; they have to spit to name them.

That is just not enough. People's politics and critism's are just not 
enough. It is a question of grasping which class and which party and program 
can lead to successful revolutionary overthrow of this decadent system. In 
the final analisis that is what really counts. And as long as this process 
is delayed by the present leaderships of the International Proletariat by 
their reformist and centrist politics the only blood flowing is 
unfortunately the blood of poor and working class people.

Warm Regards
Bob Malecki




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