File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1996/96-12-31.174, message 10


From: dr.bedggood-AT-auckland.ac.nz
Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 11:35:15 +0000
Subject: M-G: Re: Kevin's feeling better


> Date:          Sat, 28 Dec 1996 21:51:46 -0500 (EST)
> From:          Kevin Cabral <kcabral-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
> Subject:       Re: M-I: Re: "getting it up"
> To:            marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
> Reply-to:      marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU

> On Sun, 29 Dec 1996 dr.bedggood-AT-auckland.ac.nz wrote:
> 
> Dr. Bedggood from New Zealand says all of the following: 
> 
> > A little seasonal drama is unfolding in the M-I list as its members 
> > trickle back from solstice struggles with the cranberry sauce jar:
> >  Yesss! Louis has had an insight. But its hardly new. Lou has cut and 
> > pasted his past thirty postings, but eliminated 9 out of 10 
> > sentences in each: 
> > >Now we know what Lou has been doing during the solstice - attending 
> > a CPUSA writing school where phrases such as "estimable Doug 
> > Henwood",  "hagiographers skulking perennially in the wings" and 
> > "priceless legacy of Marxism-Leninism" are phrases used as examples of how to 
> > reach today's switched-on youth: 
> > But wait, Kevin has an important  qualification [no its not the fact 
> > that he is infantile, male, midwest US and an earnest neophyte]:
> > I'm sure Louis Proyect has difficulty understanding what he is doing 
> > some of the time. Nevermind,  easy get rid of these difficulties in one
> >  easy motion by asking [snip]:
> > Maybe he is an electrician, or Louis is: I wouldnt want to be within a 
> > thousand miles of him when he pulls his switch, but is it a switch he 
> > [Kevin] wants to pull?
> > Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha - maybe Kevin reads 
> > afterwards:
> > I have this image of Lou and his friend sitting in their circle 
> > getting it up.  But this is naughty. I should really concentrate on 
> > the politics.  So here goes. 
> 
> Now after all the bullshit we get to the core of Dr. B's politics, ad
> hominem politics that is. Classicly fanatic stuff:
> 
> > Lou and his circle of admirers, neophytes or whatever, push a  
> > blatantly  US centrist, male, petty-bourgeois fatalistic view of the world. 
> > As usual, Lou and co are revising marx to account for something that 
> > is right under their noses, they own failure to take responsibility 
> > for being part of, refusing to condemn, menshevik/stalinist 
> > past/present role in betraying the industrial working class. Instead 
> > they take the time-honoured route of  blaming the working class for 
> > "not getting it up" in 1917 and foreever more.
> > Well,  Menshevik circles of this sort wouldnt recognise 
> > workers "getting it up" if it was under their noses.  For example with 
> > the 20/20 vision of hindsight,  Lou can't see Russian workers, he can't see 
> > any workers anymore engaged in struggle. Your not alone in 
> > this today Lou, its a common complaint on the `left' which does not 
> > make it right.  But don't flatter youself Lou that this is some new, scientific, 
> > updating of Marx. Your "theoretical insights" have their roots in the 
> > petty bourgeois, predating Marx. You have the same old problem that 
> > has plagued the petty bourgeois left for at least a century, you dont 
> > want workers to make a revolution because that would make you 
> > historically superfluous and your little influential "circle" just so 
> > much binary bullshit.  Well try telling that to the workers Lou and 
> > Co and see if workers are capable of sustained and disciplined 
> > violence.
> > Red kiwi lurking in the wings.
> 
> 	Apparently the Red Kiwi is a visionary. He, unlike fatalistic,
> petty-bourgeoisie males from the United States, can see worker's
> struggles and from this synthesize the experiences of the past into the
> theory and practice, dialectical praxis, of the future. Unlike
> class-collaborationist Mensheviks, or is the appropriate insult here
> Stalinist?, like ourselves the Red Kiwi is able to see past our grand
> intellectual group jerk and praxologically integrate the great curve of
> history which, in direct opposition to the ideology of anti-communist
> Proyectism and the Portuguese-fascist inspired revisionism of Godenas and
> Cabral, turns out to have a outermost limit, in the second quadrant, of
> -1917. What this startling revelation really means is that workers are
> really to make a revolution. The key, comrades, is to stop our academic
> debates about Marx. We must stop our intellectual babbling and go to the
> people! Tell the workers we are capable of sustained violence against the
> bourgeoisie state. Tell them! Tell them, and they will trade in their
> televisions for shotguns. The workers of the world are waiting for
> revolution, and this revolution will not be betrayed by the opportunism of
> Proyect and his fellow provocatours. We are but naught we shall be all;
> the workers of the world will soon off the rentiers, and opportunists in
> the same glorious blow. Who will follow me? Meet me at Starbucks tommorrow
> at 4:00pm EST and we will, guided by this great insight by our Honored
> Leader, begin the onslaught. 
> 
> -
> Kevin 
> Cols, Oh
>    
> Well Kevin, how do you feel now? Do you still think Russia 1917 is 
passe?
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 


     --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---



   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005