File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1997/97-01-04.073, message 67


Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 09:05:18 +0100 (MET)
Subject: Re: M-G: Dr Sendepause & Klasberries posting again!


Doug "Leftie Biz" wrote, on 03.01:

>At 3:27 PM 1/3/97, Rolf Martens wrote:
>
>>And you, Doug, are showing the connection, which there is too,
>>between the newer, "queer propaganda" line of the rotten
>>bourgeoisie, on the one hand, and their massive anti-indistrial
>>campaigns, of which the anti-nuclear-energy campaign is such an
>>important part, on the other.
>>
>>The two things hang together in that they're both aimed at
>>terrorizing the masses in general and at reducing the population
>>too. I't no coincidence that the genocidal "green" warfare
>>against the oppressed peoples and against the workers is advocated
>>by you, for instance, in the same breath as you're supporting that
>>splitting-of-the-sexes "queer" campaign.
>>
>>The (today conservative-bourgois) Klasberries pointed at this
>>connection too. They are somewhat for what I'm calling the
>>(old) "church propaganda" line of the bourgeoisie, which isn't
>>any good either. But that "queer-and-anti-nuke" line, that's
>>the very worst one.
>>
>>It's from *that* direction that today's main STORMTROOPRES
>>are coming.
>
>You're vile in so many ways, Martens, that I feel polluted even answering
>you. A question, though - why is it that the early Bolshies legalized
>homosexuality while the Nazis persecuted gays? And why is it that every
>two-bit Christian reactionary in America makes queer-bashing a rhetorical
>centerpiece?
>
>Doug

Answers: 

1A) The early Bolshies legalized homosexuality, i.e. took away the 
earlier tsarist laws against homosexual acts, presumably because 
they wanted to give that question its correct proportions and did 
not want to blame the existence of the phenomena, caused by certain 
factors in society, in the main on those individuals who were 
touched by it. I suppose the Bolsheviks had the same opinion on 
what those social factors were as I have - see, for instance, those 
paragraphs I quoted from Engels' book "Origins...".

You'll have noticed perhaps that in my postings, I've expressed the 
same standpoint on this as the early Bolshies: I'm against persecution
legal or otherwise, against people for homosexual acts - while holding 
the phenomenon of homosexuality to be a very negative one.

1B) The question, why precisely the Nazis persecuted and even killed 
people who were characterized, in later terms, as "gays" (a better 
term would be "glooms"), I cannot reply to more precisely than by
a couple of observations of a somewhat more general character.

Firstly, the Nazis of course favoured there being many children
of their "master race" - they were out to conquer. 

Secondly, there is a correlation in general between a certain 
society's containing factors that precisely are causing 
homosexuality to exist, on the one hand, and that same society's 
persecuting most rabidly those engaging in it, on the second hand. 
Other examples are 19th and early 20th century Britain (with not 
nearly as rabid laws on the question as the Nazis', but there were 
such laws there too) and the fundamentalists' regime in present-day 
Iran. 

That regime's oppression of women of course is incomparably greater 
than was that of the Nazis, so there's another difference here. But 
the common factor still is: A massive split between the sexes. 

One early group of Nazi leaders, the faction of Roehm, Hitler's 
"old pal" whom he ordered to be killed in 1934, of course engaged
precisely in homosexuality, as is rather well known. And before
the Nazis came to power, Berlin had been something of a "queer
capital", I believe. There were certain social and cultural
factors there which favoured this. (I admit: I haven't studied
these questions in depth.)

2) The reactionaries in the USA of the two-bit Christian type:
Approximately the same answer as under 1B). There *is*, I've
gathered, in the USA, a certain *puritanism*, of the old-British, 
also in a way Nazi-similar type.(Today's neo Nazi movement has a not
unimportant stronghold precisely in the USA.) On the other hand,
precisely in the USA there is a very massive "queer propaganda"
campaign on the part of another set of ultra-reactionaries, the 
objectives of which you yourself so massively are supporting,
Doug. I've written in earlier postings about two bourgeois lines
on sex questions, the "church" one and the "queer one".

That "queer propaganda" bourgeois grouping and line is even
worse than the "church" one. It's connected, as I pointed out and
as also the Klasberries pointed out, to the ultra-reactionary
"green" tendency within the bourgeoisie, which to a very important
extent is dressing itself up in phoney"left" clothes. Today, *this*
is a much more dangerous trend than even the "traditionally" Nazi
one - which is  nasty too but small, and not difficult to unite
almost everybody against.

The "green" warfare, "queer-propagandist", phoney"left" ideological
corner within the bourgeoisie, that's the one to watch the most
today, that's the one that, in concrete actions, is behind massive 
acts of *genocide* going on in various parts of the globe, that's the 
one that must be feared will manage to cause much more death and 
destruction than did even the Nazis, before the peoples have 
gathered their forces to strike it down.

It's because of its comparatively consistent opposition to these
programs that the rather small bourgeois LaRouche group has some
positive points, as seen from the standpoint of the proletariat.
The object of this group too of course is the maintaining of
the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. It advocates "Judeo-Christian
values", no proletarian ideology at all. But, as one consequence of 
that, it wants there to be *more* people, not less, on earth, and
*more* industry, not less, and *modern* developments in technology,
not that rabid retrogression openly advocated by "green" fascism.
These are positive factors.

But such bourgeois forces cannot, and/or do not want to, very
effectively oppose that "green" etc anti-civilization offensive of 
the *main* bourgeois forces today. The main battle against this
will have to be fought by the proletariat and the oppressed peoples.


Rolf M.







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