Date: Thu, 02 Apr 1998 10:00:19 -0500 From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu> Subject: Re: M-TH: Slavery in Guatemala=Aristocrats in the West Russell Pearson: >Now I do not mean to belittle the plight of these coffee producers, but are >you now going to continue with the same logic employed elsewhere to argue This weeks Nation Magazine has an interesting article "The Myth of Student Apathy" which deals with the resurgence of campus activism. While there is no unifying issue like the Vietnam War, many campuses have a wide range of activist organizations. The article discussed Occidental College in California at some length. The big campaign there is over the connection between the Arco oil company and the military junta in Burma, initiated by the Free Burma campaign. Sara Hunt, a freshman from Plano, Texas, recruited other students to help inform the campus about Burma's human rights violations and Arco's joint venture with the Burmese government to drill for natural gas. A November 21 protest outside a dean's office attracted 50 students who waved banners "Arco $ Slavery in Burma". Some of these students will eventually become Marxists, when they make the connection between corporate greed, class society and the state. These students and trade union militants will help to form a new socialist movement in the United States at some point. Many of the Occidental students have been involved in AFL-CIO support work over the summer. What you, Heartfield and Dale represent is the "Marxist" equivalent of the right-wing frat boy who would stop by the students table and bait them. "Don't you know that what's good for Arco is good for the United States?" Except in your case, you don't use open right-wing propaganda, you frame your right-wing shit in Marxist jargon. You would say something like, "As explained in the chapter on national differences in wages (Capital, vol 1), exploitation is far higher in the more developed nations, where labour productivity is higher." Or some other obfuscating, spin-doctoring bullshit to whitewash the bourgeoisie. Louis Proyect --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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