File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9707, message 56


From: cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox)
Subject: Re: M-I: chaos/Bhaskar/Marxism
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 14:27:07 -0500 (CDT)


Deb,

    I usually read your material carefully, but (just as with the
issue of "free speech") I don't read material that does not *start
out* with making the distinction between action/speech *within*
the workers' movement and the movement's attitude towards the
bourgeois state. I recent

    For example, I recently picked up from a public source that
the editor of the nation attended a social function at which
Henry Kissinger was also present. She did not throw blood on
him or spit in his face. That is intolerable. (On the other
hand, when there *is* occasion for civility between revolutionaries
and bourgeoisie or bourgeois agents, it is more apt to be the latter
who are apt to fail in it. At the Geneva conference ending the
First Indo-Chinese War, Chou and Dulles arrived early at the
conference room one morning, and it was Dulles not Chou who
ostentatiously refused to shake hands or acknowledge the presence
of the other.) But one *would not* appeal to or even try to
pressure the FBI to suppress mad-dog kissinger's free speech
or spit in his eye, but I have a number of times in the past
engaged in direct actions attempting to suppress the speech
of imperialist/bourgeois spokespersons. As pointed out in the
posting forewarded by Zeynep, this is a no-brainer.

    It is necessary for the existence of such lists as this
to pretend that all listmembers, except those who explicitly
state otherwise, are comrades. When such a pretense is impossible,
as with Malecki or Bhoddi, one ignores them. Hence this list
or postings to it do *not* raise the question of civility in
respect to the bourgeosie, but the issue in respect to civility
among comrades.

    I gather from Doug's response that you did not make this
elementary distinction; hence I have already deleted your posting
under this heading, but am awaiting a revised posting which
honors this distinction.

Carrol


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