File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9707, message 34


Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 01:10:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin-AT-utkux.utcc.utk.edu>
Subject: M-I: "Bourgeois Freedoms" Part II


Comrades and Robert Malecki,

In this next section I will address specific points in Robert Malecki's
post to me using arguments from Marx's controversial essay "On the Jewish
Question," as well as some original points.

On Tue, 24 Jun 1997, Robert Malecki wrote:

> There is a real problem with Andy's thesis which defends the right for 
> fascists to free speech. 

I defend the right for everybody to speak freely, not just fascists. As a
communist, I support political emancipation for the people. I see freedom
of speech (along with freedom of association, freedom to dissent, freedom
of movement) as one of the basic rights that we have won on the road to
political emancipation.

Unfortunately, the internalization of bourgeois logic has led some
communists to equate every measure of political emancipation under
bourgeois society as a "bourgeois right," and to oppose bourgeois right
not as a matter of principle but arbitrarily depending on who is seeking
to claim that right. 

I was reminded of Marx's controversial essay by Steven Lukes, the fellow
whose entry in *A Dictionary of Marxist Thought* I cited in my previous
post on this matter. In this entry Lukes also wrote:

	Marxism's wide and richer view of freedom has often led Marxists
	to understate, even denigrate both the economic and civic freedoms
	of liberal capitalist societies. Though Marx plainly valued
	personal freedom, he did, in "On the Jewish Question," see the
	right to liberty as linked to egoism and private property, and
	elsewhere wrote of free competition as limited freedom because
	based on the rule of capital [it is at] "the same time the most
	complete suspension of all individual freedom." 

In the first section of my post, I laid out Marx's position that the
various freedoms were not necessarily of the same species, particularly
noting that the freedom of the press was different altogether from the
freedom to trade. Lukes argues, along with others, that Marx "plainly
valued personal freedom." The question is this: what did Marx believe
"personal freedom" to be? Marx recognized that capitalist political
relations cut social reality up into several antagonistic pieces--the
individual from the group, the public from the private, the "rights of
man" (including some bourgeois rights) "rights of the citizen" (public
liberty or common interests)--and this makes defining personal freedom a
complicated task. That free competition among individuals is at the same
time a suspension of individual freedom points is one key to solving the
puzzle. 

Another important question is--how do we resolve this contradiction? One
does not destroy the public space to resolve the contradiction--this is
privatization! Wasn't this the disagreement Marx had with the anarchists? 
Rather, Marx argued, you democratize the private realm--civil society--and
make it public and this begins with a process of political emancipation,
whether step by step or all at once through a revolution. It is under this
process, "when, in the course of development, class distinctions have
disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a
vast association of the whole nation, [that] the public power will lose
its political character" (*Communist Manifesto*). Political emancipation,
therefore, is the initial steps (or series of steps--Marx favored both) 
that sets in motion the move towards complete emancipation.

In "On the Jewish Question," Marx answers Bruno Bauer's argument that
demanded Jews give up their religious beliefs in order to have political
emancipation. Marx disagreed with this argument (as did most Jews),
arguing instead that the Jew should be granted political emancipation
without having to give up their Judaism, despite the fear and hatred that
the public felt towards Judaism. The Jewish community was pleased by
Marx's defense of religious liberty, although this was only the more
obvious point of his argument. His primary goal was twofold: (1) freedom
from religion, specifically Judaism, and (2) political emancipation from
capitalist economics. It is not unimportant to my argument that Marx was
an atheist and, at least in this essay, desired that religion would
ultimately be abolished from the planet, replaced by a humanistic
philosophy and scientific rationality (for Marx, abolition of religion in
the context of his argument is more like abandonment of religion). Just
because Marx despised religion and thought it restricting, he did not
allow this opinion to prevent him from arguing in favor of religious
freedom. Likewise, just because I despise fascism and think it is
dangerous, I do not allow this belief to prevent me from arguing in the
favor of the freedom of political expression. 

During the course of his very complicated argument, Marx exposed the many
contradictions of bourgeois society, primarily the contradiction between
private and public spheres. Because this separation is one of the
principal logics of domination in bourgeois society, it is crucial that we
try to understand Marx's difficult position. This interpretation goes
beyond simply proving, which I have already done to my satisfaction, that
Marx and Engels held the strongest position possible with regard to
freedom of speech and other basic freedoms. Here I move to a deeper
understanding of why Marx believed in the unequivical struggle for certain
key political freedoms. 

Marx noted,

	Whereas "unlimited freedom of the press" (Constitution of 1793,
	Article 122) is guaranteed as a consequence of the right of man to
	individual liberty, freedom of the press is totally destroyed,
	because "freedom of the press should not be permitted when it
	endangers public liberty" ("Robespierre jeune," *Historie
	parlementaire de la Revolution francaise* by Buchez and Roux,
	vol.28, p.159). 

Bob argues that fascists not be permitted the freedom of the press or of
speech or other such political freedoms. Why? Is it because it "endangers
public liberty"? If so, I would ask: *whose* liberty? In Marx's argument,
the public realm is led by the state, the executive committee for the
whole bourgeoisie. The actor in the public space is a citizen. So when
freedom of the press threatens the state, then the state claims that such
private activities threaten "public liberty." Likewise, when a group calls
on the state to limit a civil liberty, then this action is claiming that
"public liberty" is in peril. In the first case, the state's interests are
held up as the general (or public) interests. Since we are all by the
nature of nationalism members of a nation's political life, this looks on
the surface to be reasonable. In the second case, we are asking the state
to limit the freedom of others, in this case a freedom that is
(rhetorically) universal. What all this usually really means, however, is
that a private group who does not really control the state (perhaps labor)
is threatening the activities of another private group who does control
the state (perhaps capital). The interests of latter private group become
synonymous with public liberty, and the subversive group is suppressed by
the state, the apparatus of the ruling class. To say this in another way,
by heeding the state you heed that class which controls the state, and by
calling on the state to restrict a univeral right, you restrict the rights
of the dominated classes.

For example, freedom of the press is guaranteed to all citizens of the US
under the Bill of Rights. Yet the Smith Act forbade communists to speak,
arrested them, convicted them, and imprisoned them based on their
published writings and political positions. The reason was that communists
were thought by those in positions of power within civil and political
society to threaten the established order, i.e., the "public liberty," the
"common good," etc. Support for supressing communist speech and police
repression of communists was very popular among the population. It is
bourgeois practice to suspend political rights when they threaten the
bourgeois order. (I don't know the answer to this, but did communists
support the Smith Act on the grounds that free speech for communists was 
a "bourgeois right"?)

The "bourgeois right" embodied in the "rights of man"--civil society, the
private sphere, the sphere which appropriates the social product--is to be
"totally destroyed" "when it endangers public liberty." But by destroying
"bourgeois right" political society preserves civil society!  This is the
illusion, that hides the contradiction, that Bob walks right through
without noticing (and bumps his head on the glass). He focuses on the
shadow and not the substance. The public sphere, the sphere of the state,
i.e., political society, is the only form of political activity, the only
social space, where the people can legitimately call upon the social power
(held privately) to bestow upon them further political rights; it is,
therefore, Marx argues, the only form of communalism, however limited,
that exists under bourgeois society. Of course, because of the separation
of society into public and private spaces, because of bourgeois control
over the political machinery, the call for social power often goes
unheaded (sometimes even suppressed). And when the state does grant
political freedoms, these often have a co-optive function, as we all know
quite well. Nevertheless, because of the political structure of bourgeois
society we are forced to enter this contradiction in our struggle for
emancipation from bourgeois society. Every bit of political freedom
acquired, while it may pull us closer into the logic of capitalism, also
democratizes a bit of civil society. This is why there is no change unless
people organize into a movement and struggle for change. This was why Marx
believed that the people should be politically active and struggle on two
fronts, both to democratize the public sphere and the civil sphere, thus
slowing eroding the hegemony of the bourgeoisie over both spheres of life,
and eroding the distinction between the two spheres by making more obvious
the inherent contradiction in falsely divided society; and revolutionary
struggle from the outside to overthrow the bourgeois state. In other
words, this line of action intensifies the contradictions of bourgeois
society!

Ask yourselves, does it make sense for communists that the resolution of
the contradiction between the private sphere and the public sphere involve
the destruction of political society in favor of civil society? As I
already noted, today we call this "privatization." This is a rolling back
of democracy. So where does the resolution to the contradiction lie? Of
course in this--in making political freedoms universal, in the destruction
of civil society. Political society, that realm where humans can be
communal, must replace civil society, that realm where "man is separated
from man."

Political emancipation is the dissolution of this barrier, the bourgeois
barrier, the class-based right, the right of man, in contradiction because
of the contradictory structure of bourgeois society. Political
emancipation for everybody destroys the alienated state of the human
condition under conditions of estrangement from the social power which has
become a private power. So just as permitting the Jew political freedom
helped free all of us politically from the Judaism--by eroding the power
it held cordoned off by the separation between political and civil
society--so permitting other groups political freedom helps free all of us
politically from these other groups, as well. What is dissolved is the
illusion of a universal right by making that right universal. You make
that right real, and in so doing you negate bourgeois society (of course
these political rights of thought and expression must be joined with other
political rights such as the right to appropriate the products of society,
and so forth). You cannot abolish a right in civil society until you
acceptit in political society first. This point applies to perhaps all
rights in civil society. Think about it. You cannot eliminate the civil
right of private property (the private control over social production)
unless you make the appropriation of social production a universal
political right. By making it a political right of every citizen you
remove the protective barrier that prevents public control over private
affairs. This is the communization (or democratization) of civil
society--this is what we want! 

The tragic irony is that when the political freedoms of the Jew were, in
large measure, eliminated, because the fascist thought the Jew was all
that was evil, the Jew was practically eliminated along with his loss of
political liberty. This shows you that several "bourgeois rights" had some
practical significance for a concrete marginalized population--"bourgeois
rights" that had been obtained, I must remind you, in part because of
arguments put forward by people like Marx! (And while I understand that it
would not bother some people in this discussion to first deny the fascist
political freedoms, and next to exterminate the fascist altogether--
contemplating such an move bothers me greatly.) 

Following the logic of Marx's argument, the contradictions that create
fascism are not contradictions emerging from the fascist himself--no, the
fascist represents contradictions in the structure of the society that
made him. Attempting to change social structural contradictions by
eradicating the fascist, no matter in what way you do this, does nothing
to change the deep contradictions that created fascism and the fascist in
the first place! Indeed, it inoculates that contradiction from resolution
through the diminishment of political liberty, further strengthening the
wall between civil and political society--that most bourgeois creation of
them all! In other words, in a contradicted society, pursuing the
illusion, doing what appears sensible, is actually being pursued by
reality, leading to an opposite outcome from what was originally intended.
This is why limiting the freedom of speech for some groups limits the
freedom of speech for all groups *except* those who actually control
public power--the bourgeoisie.

Let's be very clear about what I am arguing. I do not defend the content
of just any speech. I defend the principle of free speech. The content of
speech, whether it is fascist or communist or religious, is irrelevant to
the question of whether every person should have the right to speak
freely. I defend the right of a fascist to freely speak because a fascist
is a human being and the principle that I am arguing for extends the
freedom of speech to all human beings contrary to the restrictive
structure of rights under bourgeois rule. 

> Fascism is the ultimate solution to bougeois society in a terminal
> crisis which appears from time to time. 

Bob, fascism is not the ultimate solution to the crisis of bourgeois
society. It is but a temporary amelioration of capitalist crisis by doing
away with any pretense of democracy, specifically, doing away with the
democratic form technically identified as polyarchy. There are other
temporary "solutions," such as the expansion of some forms of democracy
(within the parameters of polyarchy) under the New Deal. Corporatist
solutions, therefore, can be of the fascist sort, or of the social
democratic sort. The latter corporatist form is actually more democratic
than the liberal democratic order out of which both forms of corporatism
emerged following the world crisis of the 1920s and 30s. To suppose the
sort of inevitability of fascism to emerge in capitalist crisis, and to
substitute some ideal-type, generic form of fascism for historically-
determined concrete social formations, all of which Bob does in his post
to me, is in error according to historical materialist tenets.

Lest we forget, the "ultimate solution" to capitalism is *communism* (at
least according to communists). Limiting democratic freedoms for some will
not help us extend democratic freedoms to all, which is a central goal of
communism.
 
> Fascism is the tool that the bougeosie elect when the situation for them 
> becomes desperate in order to smash the workers organisations, ethinic 
> minorities or whatever as long as there economic rule is not threatened.

Certainly this is historically true, but I fail to see why it matters for
my defense of free speech. I am reminded by your argument of a US Supreme
Court justice, a staunch liberal democrat, who argued that "Since the most
cherished values upon which our Republic is founded is freedom of
expression, and since Communists directly threaten freedom of expression,
we must prevent Communists from freely expressing themselves." 

Nevermind the paradox! What he right, after all??!!

But indulging you for a moment, Bob, I am led to this question: If fascist
speech is a tool of the bourgeoisie, then how will communists succeed in
restricting it? The probable achievement from such a victory, if it were
even remotely possible, would be to give the capitalist ideologue a clear
justification for banning any form of "extreme" speech. 

I see a communist now before senate hearings arguing that he should be
permitted to speak. A rightwing senator from Idaho would rightly turn to
him and say, "Hypocrite, like you care about people having the freedom of
speech. Wasn't it you and your commie buddies who were hollering about how
we should restrict the speech of fascists? Weren't you one of those people
who led some big hypocritical campaign on the internet to prevent white
supremacist groups from having their own newsgroup?? Yes, I believe it was
you. So don't come round here saying you have the right to be heard on you
views. You don't believe in that right, remember?" 

What if fascism raises its head at the level of the capitalist state, how
do you propose to ban fascist speech then? If you succeeded in passing a
law today that prevents fascist speech to be spoken, then when fascists
came to power tomorrow they would have given them a nice precedent to use
against you, Bob. You will be oppressed by your own law!

We protect the right of fascists to think and speak for the same reason
that we protect the right of communists to think and speak. No, this can
be said better--we seek to extend the freedom to think and speak to
everybody so that we can insure such a freedom for ourselves. That is what
Marx and Engels argued. They even defended the speech of reactionaries to
secure the right of free speech for communists. It is impossible to defend
the prinicple of free speech more staunchly than Marx and Engels. 

> So when fascism does raise its face as it is once again Internationally it 
> usually means that bougeois democratic societies are no longer viable for 
> the bougeoisie to rule!

Fascism is where the consensual mechanisms of domination have broken down
and the state has to dust off the bludgeon. Fascism is authoritarian
capitalism. "Fascism is reaction," Mussolini said. It is reaction to
democratic freedoms such as free speech and other civil liberties (free
association, free movement, etc.). Fascism is a form of capitalism that
despises all the democratic elements of bourgeois society, democratic
elements that are the result of struggle. I regard fascism as an enemy of
the worker precisely because it destroys these freedoms. A communism that
worked to destroy these freedoms would be an enemy of the worker, as well. 
But this is pure rhetoric, since by definition a political action that
destroyed freedoms as fundamental to democracy as free speech, free
association, and free movement could not be real communism.

Are laws against child labor "bourgeois" because they were passed through
a bourgeois legislature? Or might there be some value for workers and
parents is saving their children from exploitation? Are laws freeing the
slaves in the South, laws passed through bourgeois legislatures, are these
freedoms granted by the capitalists not worthy of keeping? The Civil
Rights Act handed down by the almighty imperial government of the United
States--should this be reckoned not a worthy victory for oppressed groups?
Is the right of blacks to drink from the same water fountains as whites a
"bourgeois right"? Women being granted the right to vote--not until 1945
in France!--this is surely a "bourgeois right," isn't it? Let's do away
with it! What?--it was the bored wives of the bourgeois industrialists who
fought against child labor? Huh, women's suffrage was led by bourgeois
women? Black were freed by do-gooder Northern liberals? How can we let
these "victories" stand! They are a bourgeois sham! 

And, what is even more than this, fascists who goosestep around the
streets and pit at Oi! shows are not the fascists you need be concerned
about. And even though it is not an expression of free speech for neoNazi
punks to push over gravestones in a Jewish cemetery (and it is not, in my
view), these are not the fascists you should be concerning yourself over. 
Simple vandalism laws ought to be used against such petty acts. That is a
matter of law enforcement. The fascists you should be concerned about are
the ones you suppose are plotting to seize the reins of global government.

If you are concerned with banning the speech of the really dangerous
ideologues moving on the capitalist scene today then why aren't you
fighting to ban the the speech of neoliberals? Or neoconservatives? 
Wouldn't it be much more useful to fight to prevent books like the *Bell
Curve* from being published than to be concerned with a bunch of boneheads
skankin' to Screwdriver? And what an incredibly scary world it would be if
people claiming to speak for the communist movement were actually capable
of getting books like the *Bell Curve* banned! What communist principle is
this based on?! Only somebody who wants to destroy the communist's ability
to say he stands for freedom advocates banning the freedoms of certain
groups based on what they think, say, and write. In a communist society a
book like the *Bell Curve* would be ignored, not banned. I regard the
*Bell Curve* as a gift--it demonstrates the real position of the
conservative movement. The *Bell Curve* makes explicit what is stealthed
in all the debates against Affirmative Action and other reactionary-yet-
mainstreamed rhetoric.

And the whole point is moot, anyway. Who here thinks they could actually
ban the speech of fascists say here in America? Or anywhere, really? So
you have some laws in Sweden and some other European countries that censor
the speech of Nazis. Does it work? Has Europe moved towards communism on
the basis of such reaction? Or has Europe, since these laws been passed,
moved to the right? Why haven't the people and their laws and their libel
prevented the move to the right? "But we aren't fascists," says the
National Front in France. "We are simply for the national integrity of
France!" "Ah, okay, have at it then. As long as you don't *say* you are
fascists, as long as you don't wave around symbols that we might consider
to be fascist symbols... I don't know, like a flag or something, then you
can carry on with your bourgeois, nationalist, xenophobic, racist,
promilitary, authoritarian ways." Really, Bob, what is the point in all
of that? You are making them "extraordinary." You're making them
"martyrs."
 
> Fascism in power is never directed at the bougeoisie or the ruling class but 
> is the ultimate instrument to smash the workers parties and trade union 
> organisations not to mention a program of extermination of minority groups 
> as scapegoats for the bougeois society in terminal crisis. It is also a 
> declaration of war against all poor and working class people.

Yes, all this is true. Alexander the Great also carried out such a
program. The leaders of most conquering empires down through time engaged
in such tactics. And what permitted them to get away with it was that
human freedom was not extended to everybody everywhere. It was the
arbitrary use of power to stop this group or that group from dissenting
that permitted the ruling class to ride over their opponents. We are
already dominated. The next reaction will be something different,
something you haven't thought to ban or restrict. A rule which would ban
fascists or any future reactionary movement would have to be so universal
as to restrict the freedoms of anybody who even slightly disagreed with
the party line. What you seek, Bob, is a narrow party line. And if you say
that you don't, you still have an idea of the parameters of what you think
we should allow to be spoken and to be thought. It is you and your group
who will make a decision about what will be acceptable. "Yes, yes, fascism
today, tomorrow Trotskyism." "Yes, yes, very well, what can we ban today?"
"Hey, I believe that Christianity threatens democracy. Well, let's ban
that." "Oh, and people who are collecting these crystals, there a threat.
Well, well, can't have crystal collectors. Ban them too. Don't let them
talk." "Oh, and how about the UFO guys?" "Yes, we will have to ban them
too. Too much stirring up of people with all this talk of other lives."
"Yeah, remember Heaven's gate, right?" "Certainly, those guys murdered
themselves because some nuts on the internet had a newsgroup where they
were spreading ideas about UFOs." "Yes, yes, have to protect people like
Heaven's gate. So let's all vote to prevent there from being such a
newsgroup in the future." "Oh wait, I have an idea, why don't we just ban
Heaven's gate altogether." "Yeah, and we will restrict the internet only
to the discussion of Trotskyism... that is if we can effectively ban the
speech of Stalinists." "Yeah, if that liberal Austin would just shut up."
"Hey, let's ban him too."

> So in fact Andy thesis is a liberal attempt disguised in "marxist" rhetoric 
> to paint up fascism and their right to free speech in regards to some kind 
> of unit of "social production" where communists should at best be the best 
> "bougeois" democrats instead of proletarian class copncious fighters who see 
> rightfully fascism not only has the ultimate weapon of bougeois society but 
> its deadly enemy which must be crushed as soon as it tries to raise its head.

After all that I have written, how can my position in favor of free speech
be characterized as liberal? A liberal would claim that it is perfectly
okay to deny a fascist the right to free speech if he did not have the
means to speak. Liberals had no problem in the 1950s banning the speech of
communists. They even sent communists to prison for speaking and thinking
and writing about communism. No, my position is decidedly against the
liberal 'freedom' that states that if you can have access to a forum, and
if we decide to not pass an act prohibiting you right to think and speak
and write freely, then you can speak. My position is to extend the right
to speak to everybody. Not to restrict forums in which to speak the way
bourgeois society does. Not to restrict the right of people I disagree
with to speak the way bourgeois society arbitrarily decides to do form
time to time. 

The right to free speech is not a liberal right. It is a social right that
is privately appropriated.
 
> Commmunists are not bougeois democrats.

Then stop suggesting we act like bourgeois democrats and arbitrarily
restrict the content of speech because we disagree with it. 

> We fight only in the interests of poor and working class people. 

You do not fight for the interests of poor and working class people if you
fight against their freedom to think, speak, and write. Many working class
people are fascists. We have to win them over. Many of our comrades hold
prejudices, they are chauvinistic, patriotic--we have to let them talk to
reach them. When Barbara Ehrenreich asked Cornel West why it was that he
sat down and talked with Louis Farraakhan for 7 hours, West replied,
"Because if I don't sit down and talk to Louis Farraakhan, I can't change
Louis Farraakhan." 

> Fascism is historically proven as one of the 
> most deadly weapons that the decaying bougeois society can let loose to save 
> its neck in a new rounds of wars and blood at the expense of poor and 
> working class people.

And you will never succeed in getting rid of the possibility of fascism
unless you get rid of capitalism. So stop concentrating your energies by
wrongfully going after a right we all should have the liberty to possess
and start going after those who seek to restrict our social rights.
 
> In fact the Stalinists have had both lines. First to support fascism against 
> the "Social fascists" in Germany. Naturally this was much more then Andy's 
> defense of the right to free speech. Then the Stalinists jumped on the anti 
> fascist bandwagon to save the "democratic bougeoisie" in the war. Both 
> tactics by the way were utterly wrong despite Mark Jones long and boring 
> history lessons on the great "Patriotic" war and Stalin as this fucking 
> great tactician! 

The arbitrariness of Stalinists is the sort of evidence that makes my
argument.
 
> Andy's attempts here can hardly be layed at that door. In fact I get the 
> feeling that his arguements are the arguements of a bougeois lawyer trying 
> to tecknically justify free speech where communists should be better 
> bougeois democrats then the bougeoisie rather then seeing the historical 
> reality and political reality of what fascism means both in regards to the 
> decadent bougeis society and fascism as the final tool to fucking prop up 
> the system through a redivision of the spoils and war and 
> counter-revolutions..In fact the deadly enemy of the proletariat everywhere.

No, my argument, drawing from the democratic beliefs of Karl Marx,
shatters the false charge that certain communists make regarding the
freedom of speech as being somehow an intrinsically bourgeois right. I am
demolishing the contention of some communists that it is somehow wrong for
communists, who believe in extending democratic rights to everybody, to
actually stand for a position that advocates doing just that. 

> All real Communists should condemn this attempt by Andy not only to justify 
> free speech for fascists but to do it by deguising it in some sort of bizaar 
> "Marxist" terminology.There is only one way to handle fascists and that is 

"real communists"? 

> to fight them everywhere they try to raise there head. Fascists have no 
> rights. 

Of course fascists have rights. They are human beings. They should change
their minds, they should be prevented from taking over the state, they
should be prevented from pushing over gravestones in Jewish cemeteries,
but they deserve the same basic freedoms that we believe everybody
deserves--the right to assemble, the right to speak freely, freedom of the
press, freedom to dissent, freedom of movement, freedom to work and
appropriate the fruits of their labors. It will be difficult, once
fascists have been extended all the rights workers deserve, for fascist to
engage in movements to destroy their own liberty. A society that resolves
the contradictions that produce fascists will probably grow free from
fascism once those contradictions are abolished. This is why it is so
hypocritical for a communist, who above all else should understand the
basic argument in favor of political freedom, to call for the destruction
of these political freedoms. Making sure the freedoms are preserved for
fascists means that we preserve the freedoms for ourselves. Just as
preserving the right of all of us to appropriate the products of society
means not restricting any one person or group from appropriating those
social products.

> They should be destroyed both politically and physically. They are 
> the vanguard of storm troopers that bougeois society will use against poor 
> and working class people when bougeois democratic solutions are no longer 
> viable. Already today with the destruction of the Soviet Union and the 
> dismantling of the welfare states the tactic of the bougeoisie at present is 
> to keep these storm troopers in the wings. But as soon as the workers 
> movement begins to reorganise and the class struggle deepens as the 
> contradictions of this system wrip it apart they will be once again taken 
> out of the wings and put on front stage unless the Communists and Socialists 
> understand that the neccessity of stopping them.

I hate fascism as much as you do. But all this hyperbolic rhetoric does
not make your case. Maybe everybody will disagree with me. Okay. But I
don't see how your argument might persuade them. Not at all. 

> Andy's line is both utopian and dangerous and should be condemned by every 
> militant worker whether they be socialist or communist. It is bougeois 
> liberal garbage deguised in Marxist terms. In fact he has about the same 
> line has the right wing populists and the state courts here in Sweden who 
> defend the right of fascists not only to free speech but all kinds of other 
> things. This liberal attitude has made Sweden one of the centers of Europe 
> for producing and distributing Nazi Propaganda in all forms and shapes from 
> music cd's to emblems and Nazi propaganda.

What is utopian about actually standing by the principles we espouse? 

And as I pointed out before, don't they have laws in Sweden against
fascist speech? And in Germany? and in France? Seems reactionism is
flourishing in Europe. 
 
> It also means that people are openly murdered in cold blood on the streets 
> of Sweden by the Nazi's and their supporters who put songs like "Kill the 
> Niggers" into action! So stop the bullshit Andy. And if push comes to shove 
> for example on this list and the Nazis show up here on M-I then they go and 
> any body who defends there rights here should also be thrown off the list 
> immediately. 

If somebody kills somebody in the streets of Sweden they should be tried
and convicted of murder. 

Personally, I would not be for banning Nazis from marxism-international. 
I would delete their posts. However, I could understand the position of
list members who wanted to ban them. Denial of Nazis from speaking on
marxism-international, as long as it did not deny Nazis a forum in which
to speak, is not banning Nazi speech. HOWEVER, if you succeeded in making
it impossible for Nazis to have a forum in which to speak anywhere on the
internet, then you would have a big problem, in my view. This would be
wrong. Why should it be a crime to believe that democracy should be
destroyed? Why should it be a crime to believe Jews are Satan spawn and
blacks are pre-humans? Robert Malecki has committed no crime by using his
freedom to speak to speak against free speech. Contradiction, hypocrisy,
paradox are all permissible errors to make under the "bourgeois" freedom
of speech.
 
> I think that anybody who wants to give free speech to Nazi's here on M-I or 
> anywhere else are deadly enemies and traitors of poor and working class 
> people. So Andy I hope you quickly re access you liberal bougeois opinion 
> because if you take the line you have now and apply it here on M-I opening 
> the door to fascists to 

I can't reassess an opinion that I do not hold. Let me make that very
clear--I don't not hold a liberal bourgeois opinion on this matter.

> take part in this list I promise you that I will do everything in my power 
> to destroy this list and all those who defend this political line. Here we 
> are not just taliking about a class line or Marxism but a blood line of life 
> and death. You are either on one side of the barricades or the other there 
> is no middleway on this question..

Exactly. Either you believe in the freedom of speech or you do not believe
in the freedom of speech. Either you believe in the freedom of speech for
views you disagree with or you do not believe in the freedom speech. The
principle of free political speech is different from the question of the
content of that speech. The content of speech, in fact, is IRRELEVANT to
the principle of free speech. You, Bob, appear to be all wrapped up in
liberal bourgeois concepts like libel and defamation. You would probably
come out in favor of laws against "historical revisionism" or "the
falsification of history," whatever the hell that is. You would sacrifice
one of the few possibly genuine socialist principles in bourgeois society,
the right to speak freely for everybody (at least in theory), and make it
even more of the bourgeois right you claim it to be by restricting it only
to those groups you agree with.

Sincerely,
Andrew Austin














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