Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 13:47:29 -0500
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: Re: M-TH: Mandel's critique of Mattick


>
>Jurriaan replies
>to Dave's point:
>
>> There is a line of march between a
>> > theoretical adaptation to indeterminacy, and political opportunism. 
>> The test of this is the condition of the remains of the United Secretariat
>> > of the Fourth International today. 
>> 
>> That's just rhetorical wank betraying serious confusion.  Let's have a look
>> at Bedggood's own line of march.  What had Bedggood accomplished with
>> railing on abstractly about the TPRF for twenty years ? Fuck all. He just
>> keeps rebuilding the same tiny sect which periodically explodes leaving a
>> scattering of disillusioned militants. 
>> 
>Normally I wouldnt waste my time replying. All I will say is that 
>Jurriaan  is one disillusioned militant I cannot be held responsible for.
>
>Jurriaan talks about wank when he embodies it. 
>He is living proof of the bankrupcy of Mandel's 
>"improvement" on Marx and his liquidationist politics. Jurriaan's 
>contribution to this list is a substitute for real politics,  unlike 
>the those who still fight for Trotskyism. I belong to an 
>organisation with members in 3 continents. The main reason I'm on 
>this list is to further Trotskyism and opening up opportunities for 
>regroupment. 
>
>Part of that fight for  Trotskyism is to clear out the debris of 
>post-war Trotskyist centrism and impressionism. Mandel is the single 
>most representative figure in that tradition which has to be 
>overcome.  He has to be defeated not only in terms of the method 
>which he uses to distort Marx - amending the crisis theory so that it 
>can be proved by academics; deriving a "new" stage of capitalism - 
>"late" capitalism to deal with the "new" period after the war. He 
>also has to be defeated in his "programme". It is interesting that as 
>soon as I mention "programme", Jurriaan reacts hyperdefensively.
>
>Mandel's political tendency is in meltdown, sadly leaving flotsam 
>and jetsam like Jurriaan floating about. But his programmastic ideas still 
>operate as a bridge between right-wing Trotskyist centrism and the swamp of 
>neo-stalinist Menshevism.  Instead of liquidating itself into petty 
>bourgeois radical movements like students, "unconscious trotskyists" 
>and guerillaists, today Mandel's political remains liquidates itself 
>into the imperialist democratic petty bourgeois. 
>
>Dave. 

Well said Dave!

Bob Malecki



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