Date: Thu, 1 Jan 1998 21:33:48 +0100
From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: M-TH: Re: Vacillating Petty-Bourgeois


Leo writes, with great wit and originality:

>And, you and your ten comrades, represent the working class, of course.

So:

a) Who does represent the working class?

b) Do they represent the *interests* of the working class?

c) Do they represent the *historical* interests of the working class?

d) If they don't, what are these interests?

e) If these interests exist (Marx thought so), who knows what they are?

f) Do those who know what these interests are (as Marx did), represent the
working class?

g) If those who really represent the interests of the working class are not
leading the class, and those who only nominally represent the working
class, but not its interests (a list too long to give here, let's just give
the examples of Kautsky, Stalin, Meany and Blair) are treacherously leading
the class to defeat against imperialism and the bourgeoisie, then it is
pretty obvious that there's a crisis in world proletarian leadership.

QED

Marx made a famous joke about elected politicians representing and
repressing (vertreten und zertreten) at the same time. Is this too subtle
for Leo and his thinkalikes? Let's see:


>The thing about Trots is their propensity for wordy 'ad hominem' arguments;
>Stalinists go straight to the point.

The point of the icepick perhaps...

(Ad hominem! In all my characterization of Proyect there wasn't a word
about his snitching activities -- that recently even aroused the
mild-mannered Rakesh, at long last --  or his evidently unbalanced state of
mind. That was not because these things aren't relevant in politics, but
the big picture was the important thing, getting at the class pressures
that produce phenomena like this lunchtime liar, this king of
compilation...)

>In this respect, I tend to prefer
>Stalinists -- they waste a lot less of my time.

 If Leo thinks that Oleachea or Godena are pithier and more to the point
than, say, Dave Bedggood, then people will easily deduce how well he is
capable of weighing up an argument on its merits, how he thinks politically
and how little he really values his precious time.

Perhaps, as an exercise, Leo could tell us just what these
massed-battalions-of- brute-force representatives of the working class have
actually achieved for the working class? And how they did it? And against
which competing policies?

Cheers,

Hugh




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