File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-04-18.201, message 23


Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 18:08:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Amrohini J. Sahay" <ajsahay-AT-mailbox.syr.edu>
Subject: M-I: PANIC LEFTIST: FRAME EIGHT






Revolutionary Marxist Collective (Buffalo/Syracuse)
************************************************




PANIC LEFTIST : FRAME EIGHT  




Having failed to drive us off the list by intimidation, threats,
insults.., Uncle Louis is now taking another route to get rid of us so
that he can go on anecdote-mongering.  He is begging us to go to another
list: He owns this one!  By the way, all those who jumped on us for our
misspelling of Yoshie's name (we had added a U and dropped an E), why are
they silent when Uncle Lou continually mis-spells Zavarzadeh's name so to
mock him?  We added a U and dropped an E from Yoshie and we got called
everthing under the sun. Uncle Lou negates the very being of another human
being by calling him (in the previous post) NAVAH and in the more recent
one NAVARADZEH.  The "N" is the "N" of negation, erasure and terroristic
attack on a person whose cardinal sin is that he is putting pressure on
the existing practices that are passing as "marxist". CRITIQUE him! Why do
you NEGATE him?  Why is the net-left so selective in its critique of
racism and imperialism?  This is, once more, evidence that there is very
little difference between the Republicans and the net-left: both are
bashing immigrants, ridiculing the "other"...  It is embarrassing to see
that Uncle Louis' language in discussing such a cultural phenomena as
"Heaven's Gate" is hardly different from David Letterman and Jay Leno... 
this is the de-sedimented left... The source of the tremendous hostility
to us is because we unveil such cyberfascist tendencies on the list... we
are the "Heaven's Gate" to Uncle Lou's naked racism and colonialism.

	Uncle Lou wants to leave and says that he is simply not interested
in discussing theory. This is another instance of the "break" practice
that we have already discussed.  As far as Uncle Lou is concerned, his
"ideas" (i.e. "anecdotes") belong to an autonomous zone of discourse that
lies beyond theoretical critique.  There is "theory" over there and here
are the independent, self-grounding "anecdotes" of Uncle Lou.  By
marginalizing theory and pushing it off the list, in other words, he wants
to keep his own "assumptions" (the UN-SAID of his views) protected from
critique.  We have tried to up-pack the assumptions of his "anecdotes" --
what he takes as self-evidence without knowing it -- and shown that in
their assumptions his views are identical with some of the most
reactionary and backward that are circulated in conservative circles.  His
anger, mocking, marginalizing of "Buffalo BOYS" is simply a
self-protecting strategy.  He says he is not interested in discussing what
we are discussing: he is, of course, free not to respond but that does not
mean that his assumptions should not be examined.

	It is the rigorous examination of what he takes "for granted" that
is sending him into such rage, paternalism and blind racism.  By not
allowing an examination of the assumptions that provide the conditions of
his and other's texts on the net-left, the net-left protects its
incoherence.  As we pointed out, Lou and others on the one hand say they
are opposed to pomo, but their own politics is hardly more advanced than
"identity politics" -- tell me about your EXPERIENCE...  Owing to such
theoretical insularity, they do not realize that they are doing exactly
what they say they are opposing.  Uncle Lou's attack on theory is an
attempt to naturalize his incoherence. The left cannot afford to be
incoherent.




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