File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-01-21.060, message 46


From: Zeynep Tufekcioglu <zeynept-AT-turk.net>
Subject: M-I: Jerry Levy's claim
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 01:48:34 +0000


Dear list-members,

After examining the relevant posts in the marxism-international archives and
the post from PEN-L that Jerry sent to us (which are appended below), we
have concluded that no basis exists for Jerry's claims that Lou Proyect
knowingly "snitched" on him to management. It is true that Lou Proyect made
public information that Jerry gave him in a private post, without knowing
the relative positions of Randy Martin and Jerry Levy. What he said later on
in Pen-L was defending himself against the charges and disclosed no further
information. 

Jerry Levy was suspended for calling all the members of
marxism-international rabid dogs. Although there is no "rabid dog" clause in
the list rules, (largely because of the difficulty in foreseeing
everything), considering that on the one hand that Jerry was not a list
subscriber and therefore did not have the same rights as a list subscriber,
and on the other hand the moderators reserved to themselves some discretion
for handling disruptive and malicious behaviour against
marxism-international, we feel that we were justified in suspending him.

At the end of the two weeks, which is next week, Jerry may post to the list
if he agrees to abide by the rules.

As of this week, posts by non-subscribers will be bounced to the moderators,
who may forward them to the list at their discretion. In general, most spoon
lists are generally open only to subscribers. From now on,
marxism-international will also follow that convention.

A few general comments about Jerry Levy.

When the lists were being discussed, Jerry wanted marxism-thaxis members to
be subscribed with the condition that they couldn't subscribe to either
marxism-general or marxism-international, hence they should be mutually
exclusive. His reasoning was that there were different types of marxism
lists and marxism-thaxis should be protected from the others, by any means
necessary, including pre-emptive censorship. On marxism-thaxis, when a
subscriber raised the issue of Stalin, Jerry wanted him kicked out from the
list.

Of course, two wrongs don't make a right. However, we do think Jerry can't
claim not to understand the moderators' wish to protect
marxism-international from senseless flame-wars instigated by
non-subscribers that arise solely from personal dispute, when he was
advocating censorship on a much wider scale.

Also, Jerry has no regard for the facts of the case. For one, Barkley Rosser
has made it clear that Lou Proyect is not implicated in the PEN-L phone
company employee problem. Rosser's original post was ambiguous. Lou Proyect
revealed the anon referee back in November. Jerry did not make a big deal
out of it then, he did not contact the moderators. Later, he even offered to
bury the hatchet with Lou Proyect, admittedly a good-natured move. In
November, he didn't think Lou Proyect was an incurable "snitch and a scab".
He claims he brought this case into our attention after realising that this
was an indication of serial behaviour. There is no tenable claim other than
Jerry's. Lou Proyect's threatening language against Hans Erbar and Chris
Burford, while completely unreasonable, abhorrent and inexcusable, is not
"snitching". Jerry's circular reasoning is not warranted.

Also, I'm not a personal friend of Lou Proyect as Jerry keeps claiming, Jon
Flanders is. Jon withdrew from handling this case and left it up to the two
other moderators, stating that his friendship might throw doubt over his
impartiality. I agree and disagree with Lou Proyect on a number of issues,
as I do with many other list members, and I consider him a sincere Marxist
and a revolutionary, as I consider many other list members to be. I have no
idea where Jerry got the idea I or Louis Godena would be biased in favour of
Lou Proyect, and I think his repeated statements to that effect demonstrate
his disregard for the facts of the case.

Also, I would like to remind list members that warnings regarding breach of
list rules are made privately. We don't make them public unless the offense
is repeated, so please contact the moderators first if you think there is
any breach of rules or ethics.

Two relevant posts are appended below, the one in marxism-international and
later on PEN-L.

As moderators, we hope that this puts an end to this issue as far as
marxism-international is concerned.

Zeynep

***--***---***---
>Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 14:01:59 -0800 (PST)
>From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
>Reply-To: pen-l-AT-anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu
>To: Multiple recipients of list <pen-l-AT-anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu>
>Subject: [PEN-L:8106] Clarification
>
>I am going to stay on this *furkockte* (that's Ancient Greek for
>misbegotten) list just long enough to straighten a few things out.
>
>Berkely Rosser was ill and probably drunk when he called me a snitch the
>other day. Anybody who read what he wrote would figure out how deeply
>insecure the guy is. He is a honest-to-goodness book writer. (How do you
>do that anyway? Do write the fucking thing first and then take it to a
>publisher or do they come to you?) The demons who possess him share the
>first name Louis. One is a Harvard University dropout who works as a
>millwright. The other one, me, is a computer programmer. The only place we
>publish is on the Internet and nobody needs to give us an invitation.
>
>About 6 months ago I was in an extremely violent flame-war with Shining
>Path supporters on the Marxism list. One of them, "Quispe" called me a
>"Zionist" repeatedly. He used this term the way the Polish CP leaders used
>to in the 1960s against their opponents. It is another way of saying kike.
>Another of them, a certain Olaechea, spent day after day accusing me of
>being a "black fascist". (I am not black and I am not a fascist.)
>
>Hans Ehrbar, the MODERATOR of the Marxism list, in other words our Michael
>Perlman, was smitten with this gang. He used to be a member of a
>pro-Albanian sect in the 1970s and this was like going to a high-school
>reunion. He patronized them when he should have been saying things like:
>"We should not jew-bait list members. We should not call each other
>fascist." The patronization he engaged in was simply sick. He blamed this
>type of language and behavior on "growing poverty". Meanwhile, one of
>these individuals came from an oligarchic family in Peru and runs a
>translating business in Peru. (I should add that we have become friends
>and comrades subsequently.)
>
>I blew my stack at Hans. I told him on the list, "Hans, if you don't stop
>acting stupid, I am going to call the President of the University of Utah
>and report you." That was it.
>
>Now a word or two to that knucklehead Professor Levy. Levy got into a
>flame war with me on the Marxism list for the same reason that Rosser did.
>I didn't want to get together with him to have a beer and shoot the
>breeze. The reason should be obvious. They are not cool people.
>
>So at one point Levy quits the list in protest over my being me. I don't
>hear from him in months and it would be fair to say that we are not
>friends. The next thing I know I get a smirking email from him out of the
>blue telling me that Randy Martin, who I consider to be a friend and who I
>work with at the Brecht Forum in NY, was the guy who got fooled by Alan
>Sokal's hoax paper. (Alan Sokal is also a friend of mine by the way. Yes,
>I do know everybody.)
>
>I sez to myself, "What is Levy doing rubbing my nose in this shit?" And I
>don't forget nothing. So the next thing I know, when I get into a bit of a
>tiff with George Yudice and the Social Text crowd over on the Marxism
>list, I take that opportunity to let Randy know that Jerry was gossiping
>about him behind his back. Don't be a gossip, Jerry, and you won't get
>into trouble.
>
>Now I've found out that there are some people who are spreading this
>"snitch" shit around and I know who you are. I expect some private email
>from you letting me know that it won't go any further. Doug Henwood has
>described me as "volatile" and you don't know the half of it. I expect to
>haunt all these stupid academic conferences for the foreseeable future
>that you folks spend months getting psyched up for. If you think I can get
>angry on an email list, wait until you meet me in person.
>
>Louis "Born to Lose" Proyect


---****-----****----****


>Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 07:55:51 -0500 (EST)
>From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
>To: marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
>Subject: M-I: Reply to George Yudice
>Sender: owner-marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
>Reply-To: marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
>
>George Yudice:
>-------------
>Others have already commented on the ad hominem statements about 
>Andrew Ross to which Proyect has admitted, attempting to dissociate 
>these comments, disingenuously in my opinion, from homophobia. (By 
>the way, for accuracy's sake, Ross was not wearing a "fluffy white 
>shirt" but a plain one. The justification put forth by one correspondent 
>that this was a reference to a Seinfeld episode does not change the 
>"objective conditions"). It might also be added that references to 
>Stanley Aronowitz's weight in a discussion that is presumably about 
>"intellectual standards" reveal a need on the part of Proyect, Henwood 
>and Luzietti to bolster with calumny statements that are otherwise 
>lacking in substance.
>
>Louis Proyect:
>------------
>The last time I got a missive filled with such self-righteous indignation 
>was from Michael Albert, the editor of Z Magazine. I had complained 
>to the PEN-L list on the Internet that it was virtually impossible to get 
>a phone-call returned when you leave a message on Z's answering-
>machine. I opined that the anarchists at Z Magazine must be "too 
>liberated" to bother with such petty details like answering messages. 
>Now Albert wasn't even a member of PEN-L. Somebody had 
>forwarded my musings to him and he felt the need to defend Z's 
>reputation on an Internet mailing list that he didn't even belong to.
>
>Now I get the same sort of wounded bleating from George Yudice. Let 
>me start off by saying that I find it most odd that he has been on the 
>list since the very first day I posted my mostly humorous comments on 
>the Sokal meeting, but it took him *days* to comment. If I still had a 
>suspicious nature, I would speculate that somebody who has it in for 
>me cross-posted my remarks to him. But there wouldn't be anybody 
>like that on this list, would there?
>
>All that being said, these yutzes at Social Text must really be thin-
>skinned to have to go join a mailing list of 70 people in order to 
>answer me.
>
>Who am I, by the way.
>
>I am a 51 year old computer programmer at Columbia University, not 
>a professor. I sit in a fucking cubicle from 8 to 5 everyday working on 
>Unix scripts for the Facilities Management Department. To break up 
>the day, I write stuff on the Marxism list. That is the only place my 
>articles have ever appeared. The Internet has allowed me the 
>possibility to reach a wider audience.I don't have Social Text at my 
>disposal. I don't teach at CUNY as you do, nor am I the director of the 
>Inter-American Cultural Studies Network as you are. Nor do I have a 
>book on "We Are (Not) the World: Identity and Representation in an 
>Age of Global Restructuring" coming out from Duke University Press 
>the way you do. (By the way, congratulations for hitting all the hot 
>buttons in that title.)
>
>I have a suggestion. Why don't you come up here and do some 
>computer programming for a while and let me edit Social Text for an 
>issue or two. You say it is edited by a collective. How wonderfully 
>"liberated". Can one be a member of this collective without being a 
>professor at a New York city college? Maybe you should allow a 
>computer programmer to look at your copy. I would have picked up on 
>Alan's spoof right off the bat. I would have taken one look at it and 
>called him up immediately and asked, "Alan, what's up with that, 
>home-boy?"
>
>George Yudice:
>-------------
>These men conveniently adopt a self-heroic stance when they assume 
>that "pomos," including I assume members of the _Social Text_ 
>collective, have not had visas denied, never been arrested, etc. That is 
>a mistake: some of the accused have worked quite actively, like 
>Aronowitz in labor organization, and others have fought for the cause 
>of Marxism, and have taken risks in anti-apartheid struggles in South 
>Africa or anti- imperialism in Central America and elsewhere. Some 
>have even rubbed shoulders with Proyect at the New York Marxist 
>School. 
>
>Louis Proyect:
>-------------
>Why be coy? It is Randy Martin who I "rub shoulders" with at the 
>Brecht Forum. It turns out that Randy read Alan's spoof for Social 
>Text and got suckered into accepting it. This was the inside scoop I got 
>from Jerry Levy, a professor at Pratt. Levy let me in on the secret just 
>to be malicious, since he knows that I am a big fan of Randy's. But I 
>have also told Randy to his face that his language is jargon-ridden and 
>elitist, just like Stanley Aronowitz's. Something I haven't told Randy, 
>however, is this. I felt like a god-damned fool trying to get him to 
>connect with Jon Beasley-Murray, a graduate student at Duke who 
>started the Marxism list in the first place. Jon is a terrific guy who is 
>studying with Michael Hardt and who wants to do a thesis on civil 
>society in Latin America. I went through a fair amount of trouble to 
>introduce Jon to Randy, who taught a class on Civil Society at the 
>Brecht Forum. I was deeply disappointed to find out from Jon that 
>Randy didn't seem interested in replying to any of Jon's e-mail. Do you 
>have to be part of the Social Text collective to get your e-mail 
>answered?
>
>George Yudice:
>-------------
><clip> How else can we interpret Proyect's Nov. 3rd comment: " I 
>wanted to point out that the President of Barnard College is a noted 
>feminist scholar who has made her expertise trans-sexual identity. 
>This did not stop her from waging a bitter 6 month fight with the 
>mostly poor and black administrative and clerical workers in their 
>strike to defend health-insurance gains won in the past. Class 
>matters." The implication is that those who posit questions of sexuality 
>are distanced from the "working class." But is such an anecdote proof 
>of anything? Is this an exemplary application of "intellectual 
>standards"?
>
>Louis Proyect:
>-------------
>This is not the implication whatsoever. My statement has to do with 
>the hypocrisy of somebody with impeccable multicultural credentials 
>stabbing poor, black women in the back. Something is rotten when a 
>Judith Shapiro can get away with this shit without fear of being 
>ostracized by the "progressive" academic community. Barnard, which 
>is filled to the rafters with "progressive" professors, saw a notable 
>falling-off of faculty support after the strike wore on into the 4th, 5th 
>and 6th months.
>
>I am not even going to try to respond to the remainder of your remarks 
>which have to do with Marxism as "ideology" and related subjects. 
>Justin and Rakesh have already taken care of business on that score 
>and there is nothing more that I have to add.
>
>I will remind you of something, however. This list is not a general 
>Marxism list. It was formed by people who generally have nothing to 
>do with postmodernism except to kick it in the shins every time they 
>get a chance. We tend to line up with the Monthly Review and 
>Socialist Register when it comes to questions of class and identity. So 
>if you stick around here for any period of time after you get a chance to 
>say everything you need to say about the Sokal business and my rude 
>report, you should not expect smooth sailing. This is not the Social 
>Text collective.
>
>Basically, you, Ross and Aronowitz are three oversensitive pedants. I 
>can't call a press conference the way Andrew Ross can. I can't get 
>Houghton-Miflin to advance me $100,000 for my next (first) book. 
>You guys are celebrities and I live in complete anonymity. Maybe 
>someday we will all publish on the Internet so it will truly be a level 
>playing-field. In the meantime, I'd mellow out if I were you.
>



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