Date: Sun, 02 Nov 1997 00:30:02 -0500
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Gaia worship on M-I?


Heartfield:
-------------
"It would not be an improvement to conduct MI by pigeon post or by lighting
beacons on  hills. Like it or not the very technology that you deploy to
bemoan modern technology was developed and introduced under the impetus of
capital accumulation. Our job, surely is to realise the full potential of
human development by removing the restrictions that capitalist social
relations continue to place on it."

Louis Proyect:
-------------------
I am crushed by this news. Most people on this list, including me, are
diehard Luddites and have begun making plans to move to Vermont in the next
year or so where we can set up a Gaia commune. Rakesh has volunteered to be
the cook (only vegetables--this is important since animals are our brothers
and sisters), Yoshie will be in charge of the chorus (what would a commune
be without hand-holding around the campfire as we sing hymns to brother sun
and sister moon); and Michael Hoover will be our shaman. Michael is a very
spiritual sort of guy who can levitate while reciting Zen Buddhist koans.

FOR CHRIST SAKE. GET A GRIP, MAN. WE ARE NOT A BUNCH OF GREENS HERE. WHY
CAN'T YOU GET THAT THROUGH YOUR OXFORD-EDUCATED SKULL.

Heartfield, I have been a computer systems analyst since 1968. For over
five years I was the president of the Board of Directors of the Institute
for Technology and Development, better known as Tecnica. We sent hundreds
of volunteers to Nicaragua to train people how to use advanced technology,
especially computers. A Tecnica volunteer, an electrical engineer by trade,
was critical in repairing power stations that the contras were blowing up.
Other volunteers worked closely with Ben Linder who was bringing
hydro-electrification to remote villages in the north. After the contras
killed him, Rebecca Leaf, a Tecnica volunteer and electrical engineer,
completed the project.

The program eventually spread to Africa, where we placed volunteers with
the African National Congress in exile, SWAPO, the governments of
Mozambique and Zimbabwe. I was on the initial trip to Lusaka, Zambia where
we discussed the needs of rapid economic development for post-apartheid
South Africa with Thabo Mbeki. (What has happened there now is no fault of
Tecnica.) After the ANC returned to South Africa, we always had at least a
dozen volunteers training people in the use of technology. Our volunteers
helped COSATU set up a networked database that they used for organizing.
Tecnica volunteers trained SWAPO how to use desktop publishing technology
that they put to use in their first election campaign..

My life as an activist and my theoretical work is tied up with the need to
make use of technology to solve the most pressing problems facing humanity.
If I ever get around to it, I am going to write an article that proposes a
technological/political solution to the ecological crisis.

You have read my article on the red-green synthesis and you have not made a
substantial critical point, except that I seem "distrustful" of big cities.
Well, who the fuck knows. Listen to as many car alarms as I do for a couple
of nights and you might get sick of the city yourself. What I will propose
after the revolution is that all people who get caught with these things
get thrown behind bars for the rest of their lives. 

Your problem is that you show no signs of engagement with Marxist
environmentalism. I don't care if you are for it or against it. You just
pretend that it doesn't exist. I present criticisms of nuclear power from
prestigious scientists and you dismiss this as irrational fears, like those
of people who used to worry about fluoride in the drinking water or getting
warts from toads.

For god's sake, why don't you go to a bookstore or university library and
get your hands on the following books:

1) "Environment and Development in Latin America", ed. David Goodman,
Michael Redclift
2) "The Social Causes of Environmental Destruction in Latin America", ed.
Michael Painter, William Durham
3) "Environment Under Fire: Imperialism and the Ecological Crisis in
Central America", Daniel Faber
4) "The Vulnerable Planet", John Bellamy Foster
5) "The Greening of Marxism", ed. Ted Benton
6) "Ecosocialism", David Pepper

These are in my permanent collection at home but I have consulted many
others from the Columbia University over the years.

What you don't seem to get is that the modern environmentalist movement was
started by a scientist. When Barry Commoner's "Closing Circle" appeared in
the early 70s, he made SCIENTIFIC arguments about the sort of pollution
that post-WWII capitalism was producing. While Commoner was a scientist, he
was also somebody clearly informed by the Marxist critique.

Commoner pointed out that widespread use of synthetic, non-biodegradable
materials was extremely detrimental to the environment and to human beings.
In particular, they are carcinogenic. The NY Times had an article the other
week about the dramatic rise in the incidence of childhood leukemias that
they tie directly to relaxed EPA enforcement. This is not a debate over
Heidegger or the Frankfurt School's views on technology. We are not
discussing alienation. We are discussing tumors. The people you set up as
ideological opponents were philosophical romantics  who have little to do
with a scientific critique of capitalist pollution. They are opposed to
industrial society just like Gandhi or Vandana Shiva. People like Barry
Commoner, on the other hand, are opposed to the ABUSES of industrial
society under capitalism..

You are not going to get anywhere writing these patronizing posts about how
you and your furkackte RCP are for technology and the rest of the left is
against it. Our beef with you is over an entirely different set of issues.

We find it deeply distressing that you have a cavalier attitude toward
capitalist destruction of the environment. You claim that there are more
trees in North America than there were in 1492. When people pointed out to
you that this is a ridiculous lie made up by the ultra-rightist hate-radio
DJ Rush Limbaugh, you shrug your shoulders and say that you didn't write
the offending sentence. Somebody else did. AND YOU ASPIRE TO RESOLVE THE
POLITICAL CRISIS OF HUMANITY WITH THIS SORT OF DOG ATE MY HOMEWORK
ATTITUDE? By the way, you were supposed to raise this question with the
"Forest Commission" of the Revolutionary Communist Party. Where are they
now? Doing field studies in Borneo? Killing Orangutans?

What should strike people about Heartfield is the huge gap between his
Marxist erudition and his understanding of some quite simple issues. For
example, revolutionaries should defend the right of the Yanomami people to
choose their own pace of economic and social development and not attack
human rights organizations that are trying to defend this very same right.

My guess is that you folks come up with some profoundly nutty and
reactionary ideas because you have very little connection to any sort of
living struggles. Most of your efforts seems to be directed toward making
correct propaganda interventions. Therefore, you approach politics in a
very schematic manner. You never talk about demonstrations or strikes you
are building. And since everything revolves around making the correct
propaganda point, you will naturally be attracted to a medium like the
Internet, which sometimes functions as a parliament of fools.

When I think about all the insane ideas that I have run across in the past
3 or so years in cyberspace, I would welcome an upturn in the class
struggle. I would love to spend my time organizing people--my real
forte--rather than writing email to explain why Marxists should not line up
with Rush Limbaugh. That day can't come too soon..

Louis Proyect




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