Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 13:26:54 -0400 From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu> Subject: Re: M-I: The Cultural Front At 11:33 AM 7/1/97 -0400, you wrote: > On PM the progressive paper. > >Gee they were so anti racist -- they only supported World War II and the >internment of the Japanese. Great. Very Progressive. > >Congrats >Comrade Brown Generic Trotskyist League 40%off The "generic Trotskyist League"? 40% off? Comrade Brown? Buh-Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! Chortle!! Tee-hee!!! Did I tell you the one about the Trot who goes into a saloon with a parrot on his shoulder? The parrot sez to the bartender.... When I read bullshit like Comrade Brown's, it makes me embarrassed to admit that I was ever part of this movement. Yes, PM supported WWII and the internment of the Japanese. This was wrong as John Hess pointed out in his review. Eugene V. Debs' party also had wrong positions on the "Negro question" and Jack London was virulently racist toward the Japanese. Karl Marx considered the Serbs and Mexicans lower types of nationalities that should have been absorbed by Germany and the USA. In "Conditions of the Working Class in England", Engels described the Irish in absolutely racist terms. So what is the point? No movement is immune from the pressures of bourgeois society. Imperialist war brings out the worst in everybody, including a progressive publication like PM. So how do you avoid reflecting alien class pressures? My suspicion is that the "generic Trotskyists" will never reflect alien class pressures because they are so insulated from society that such pressures can never be felt. At least the "40%" tips us off that they prefer being wise-crackers to revolutionaries. What a sad commentary on the status of Trotskyism. The Old Man must be rotating in his grave at a sufficient velocity to create enough electrical energy to light up the state of Rhode Island for the month of July. Louis P. --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005