Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 03:56:28 -0500
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: Re: M-TH: Brain damage


>I agree with Hugh (and anyone else) that I should not have referred to Bob
>as brain-dead. My apologies to Bob and to the list for writing in a
>disrespectful manner. In my defense, I will say that the insults,
>vulgarities, and racist language Bob used to express himself against were
>and are personnally offensive. I felt I had to give some of it back.
>However, a reason is not an excuse, I know.

I to perhaps should apoligize! And I like Nancy's style despite her rotten 
politics and she is clever enough to help provide a basis for clarity in 
discussions. But I find it difficult to apoligize. I certainly did provoke 
Nancy with perhaps my style and language and will continue to do so. But in 
my defense I must say that my english is unfortunately hindered by and eigth 
grade education, raised in the New York slums and exile. Thus when I write 
it is based on a language used perhaps 26 years ago when I had to go 
underground and into exile. Naturally I oppose the insinuation that anything 
I write is "racist" if this is the case then obviously ebonics and all 
ghetto language is racist. Now is it I who is responsible for my bad 
language--style--according to some or is it the fact that I had a number of 
choices forced upon me by the ruling class of America since the day I was 
born? Obviously Nancy thinks that it is the victims fault that he or she 
winds up ghettoized or lumpenized..
And naturally Communists do have a choice. We either show a way out for the 
millions upon millions who do not pass up to Nancy's idea of language forms 
or the facists certainly will!
>
>But I apologize on the basis that nobody should be called "brain-dead," and
>not because of Bob's supposed working-class authenticity. If he is so
>authentic, then he should be willing to listen to another's point of view
>without spewing forth venom, whether he agrees or not. I suppose that he
>sees the Dictatorship of the Proletariat as the vehicle that will save all
>of the oppressed, but if he can't listen, how will he know who's who or
>what's what? Somebody else will have to tell him, or he will have to rely
>upon stereotypes, as he does today. He has absolutely no idea who I am; yet
>he categorizes me freely. If all of the members of the DOP are like him,
>then I will never recommend the DOP to my young sisters and brothers of the
>working class.

WellNancy I an "listening" to other points of view and naturally would never 
oppose your right to present those views, however I can only elect to reply 
to those views on the basis of my own human material and experience in life. 
However I oppose the entire idea that poor and working class people should 
be passive recievers of ideology and line from our more intellectual types. 
History has show us that a lot of smart asses always want to lead us right 
of a cliff! So the basic premise for all poor and working class people 
should be think critical..And definitely not let the smart asses intimidate 
you with their intelligence.. I certainly do have and idea what you are..A 
feminist who puts gender before class and for me this is not just a 
discussion but living reality. I do feel that feminism which can not draw a 
class line is the deadly enemy of every poor and working class person..Sorry 
if this upsets you..

>
>I stand by my position that the large-scale swallowing of fundamentalist
>teachings prevents one from learning how to think and assess things for
>one's self.

I do not! Because we can take and example of the picket line which means 
don't cross it has nothing to do with individual rights but is the 
collective class answer to the bosses in a deadly war over who gets what. As 
a poor and working class person I find strength in collectivity and as soon 
as some of our petty bourgeois individualists start screaming like you do I 
see red. Not because it is a discussion. But because it means poor and 
working class peoples blood. What would have happened in lets say Vietnam if 
one would have followed your line? The Viet Cong would not only not driven 
out the American Imperialists but they would have been dead. Or we can take 
the picket line once again. See where it gets you if with your individuality 
you decide to cross that line! So as you can see their are "fundamentalist" 
teachings throughout history that are draped in the blood of poor and 
working class people..But you still probably don't get it.

Nancy continues.. 

>Have I despaired of the working class? Well, I am sitting here trying to
>communicate with others who identify with working class politics: trying to
>see on which points we agree and which we disagree. I have a mission in
>participating on this list. I think that socialism is failed theory exactly
>because Marxists have not taken women's issues seriously. A case in point is
>what Bob wrote in his 3/20 post and I quote: 
>
>"Well guess what in 1917 the Bolsheviks had the workers working in the
>party. The Bolsheviks understood poor and oppressed people in 1917 and it
>worked. The point being that historically there have been poor and working
>class kids in very specials skills (sometimes skills which the bourgeoisie
>consider criminal) have had an enormous effect on the outcome of historical
>struggles. The hookers in the Bolshevik party are one example."
>
>Against the mentality rationalized here, Bob thinks that "Communist Women
>and Youth" are going to be the ones to lead the revolution. 
>
>Nancy

Oh I am really glad that Nancy took this stuff as and example of my 
vulgarity..Because the left romanticizes and heroisis poor and working class 
people in to something that is quite ridiculous. But first Nancy admits that 
she is here for quite a different purpose then I am here she says;

"Well, I am sitting here trying to
>communicate with others who identify with working class politics: trying to
>see on which points we agree and which we disagree. I have a mission in
>participating on this list.

Honest enough! But I am not sitting here trying to "identify" with anything. 
For me this is very real and not so much based on a book or and article but 
the living reality that exists behind all the talk. Because my whole life is 
connected to what people "say" and what it will mean to me and my class. For 
example to take a blantant example. All the patriotic hype when I was 17 to 
join the military connected to that or going to jail. These words put me in 
the position I would later find out as fucking cannon fodder for the bosses. 
And becoming cannon fodder is a very sharp lesson that one never forgets. A 
friend of mine (now dead) a private in the German Wermacht went off to the 
Eastern Front to get the Bolshies. Was captured and sent to Siberia. While 
their the imperialists bombed Dresden and wiped out his entire family..This 
experience made him a communist.Albeit a Stalinist who heroically took on 
imperialism the historical enemy of poor and working class people the rest 
of his life and payed with his life..Well, this is a different school then 
Nancy's although Nancy personally can not be blamed for it. But don't expect 
me to believe that "identifying" with something makes somebody and angel..

Now to the prostitutes! This is not the first time this has come up. In fact 
I was attacked a couple of years back on this stuff connected to Vietnam 
where I said the "hookers" in saigon were providing vital military 
information to the Viet Cong.
Hats off to the Hookers! Am I surpose to get down on my knees and lecture 
about the evils of prostituting your body in order to carve out and 
existence. No of course not because I myself was a prostitute! In the sense 
of becoming part of the military machine used to carry out imperialist war! 
In fact the prostitutes in Russia and Vietnam working for the Bolsheviks or 
the Viet Cong were far supierior to me because they new which side they were 
on..

Now all the feminist sob stories in the world will not change that fact. In 
another discussion with a feminist here in Sweden who works in a hospital we 
had a very interesting discussion. In intensive ward there were two people 
lying in bed--one and old mine worker whos body was destroyed from all the 
hard work in the mines and futhermore he had black lung disease. In the next 
bed and old prostitute who's body was destroyed by years of hooking and 
dying of aids..

Both sold their bodies and lives in a system which they had no control over 
and this system destroyed them and their bodies..I see no difference on the 
moral level. Because where I come from this is everyday stuff. Naturally the 
mine worker had a union to back him up but a leadership that betrayed him. 
So naturally unionizing hookers might be a good idea..Now to break this 
cycle it will take both a Communist International and a Communist women's 
movement which can smash the society responsible for their deaths..

But I get the idea that Nancy wants to put a moral feminist code on 
prostitutes and prostitution in the sexual sense and leaves completely aside 
that we are all prostitutes in one degree or another as long as this system 
rules over us.  Thus the pre-equisite for removing this stuff is the DOP 
which can open the road to a society where production and distribution of 
goods and services is in control of the poor and working class..

I would even say that their could be a real possibility in a transitional 
phase of state run bordellos..Because despite all of Nancy's moral 
condemnation this institution will not disappear over night. In fact it is 
one of the largest and oldest professions in history. But we could provide 
adequite medical attention and pensions for these people connected to a very 
long process of re-education of the masses on sexual relations..To drive out 
all the mystification and religous hype which is the underlying cause of 
prostitution...

Now I bet I really put my foot in my mouth..But I stand for this because 
life is far more complicated then Nancy's mora feministl condemnations..

Warm regards
Bob Malecki



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