File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/marxism-thaxis.9710, message 348


From: "Dave Bedggood" <dr.bedggood-AT-auckland.ac.nz>
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 00:32:27 +0000
Subject: M-TH: (Fwd) Fw: Free speech



James does not appear to have posted this onto MTH or MG so I am 
doing it without his permission. 
Dave.

----------
> From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
> To: marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
> Subject: M-I: Free speech
> Date: Friday, October 24, 1997 10:20
> 
> The discussion over the suspensions from the MI list demonstrates that
> no principle informs the suspensions, and no clarification arises from
> them. Since the suspensions all those that supported the action have
> been locked into vituperative exchanges without any political content
> whatsoever with the suspended - either shadow-boxing here, or sniping on
> other lists like Marxism-thaxis.
> 
> In particular the self-appointed psychiatric faculty are keen to make a
> diagnosis Bob Malecki. You ought to re-read some of your own posts some
> time. What are we to make of anyone who is preoccupied with what Bob
> Malecki has to say? That they are on the same level as he is, and are in
> no position to patronise him. Again the question that cries out to be
> answered is what has been clarified? So far, nothing.
> 
> It is not even as if one could say that a distraction has been removed.
> There has been as much written denouncing Levy and Maleki since the
> suspensions as was written before. Nor have the rudeness, vilifications,
> or personalised back-biting been reduced: its just that one side have
> been silenced, but the other side are more than willing to redouble
> their efforts to befoul my in-tray with their obscene rantings.
> 
> Most grotesque of all is the attempt to infuse this personal row with
> the semblance of a political difference. They are 'Trots' say the
> champions of censorship. So what are you? Stalinists? Are you really
> saying that it was wrong to point out that the Soviet Union reduced its
> own citizens to the level of famine and cannibalism? Was it wrong to
> point out that the Communist International under Stalin sold Poland to
> the Nazis, and the Greek partisans to the Generals (only after disarming
> them)? You don't want to hear about the past? Why? Guilty consciences?
> 
> I am not that interested in the past either, as it happens. But I don't
> object at all the crapulously laudatory postings about third-rate party
> hacks that serve no other purpose than nostalgia. I mean, there is a
> serious discussion about what happened in 1492 in progress, you can
> hardly object if someone has some left over business from 1956 or 1968.
> The embargo on the past seems only to apply to those uncomfortable
> reminders that all to many on the left kow-towed to the most barbaric
> dictatorship of the twentieth century. Well, I don't care about your bad
> consciences. But I do object when to save your delicate sensibilities,
> we on this list are denied the right to decide for ourselves what we can
> and cannot read.
> 
> I said earlier that no political light had been shed by the suspensions.
> So let's learn a real lesson. Free speech is not a procedural question,
> or a bourgeois trick. Free speech rests on the idea that all of us have
> a right to decide for ourselves, because we value our own ability to
> make such judgements. Free speech is not a privilege for those that
> speak - a privilege to be given or taken away - but a right for everyone
> concerned. The defence of free speech only matters when it is the speech
> of someone who is not approved of, or who does not fit the consensus.
> You don't have to defend popular speech.
> 
> I have been amazed by those who say that they want some people excluded
> from the list because they don't like what they say. What kind of world
> do you want to live in? One where people only say what you want to hear?
> That is the egotism of an infant, not the outlook of a grown adult.
> 
> Lift *all* the suspensions.
> -- 
> James Heartfield
> 
> 
>      --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

Dave Bedggood


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