Date: Fri, 04 Nov 1994 03:14:35 EST From: Pete Bratsis <aki-AT-cunyvms1.gc.cuny.edu> Subject: RE: the degenerated workers state and yugoslavia Tom, It seems silly to continue this discussion over the net when we are not exactly living halfway around the world from each other and no one else in the list seems interested in participating. But, I will post this last message. This debate has nothing to do with Althusser and my views on the current situation in Serbia in no way is a product of any notion such as the 'nationalist moment', 'conjucturalism', or any other term you want to make up and attribute to me. It is perplexing that you feel the only plausable reason I would not agree with you is that I must have some personal 'stake' in the situation. No one I know lives in Yugoslavia, I am not being paid by the CIA to patrol syberspace and refute the enemies of imperialism, or anything of the sort. I accept and very much beleive that you are opposed to nationalism and in no way want to support, defend, deny, or obscure it. My argument was that despite your intentions, reproducing the catagories and some of the historigraphic folklore common to the antagonistic positions/identies that underpin the current situation functions to reproduce some of these very conditions that make nationalist conflict possible. Moreover, the implication is that, on this issue, I am not contesting your claims on the basis that they are 'wrong'/ unjustifiable truth claims. It does not matter to me if they are 'provable' or not nor does it matter to me what Trotsky had to say about some methodological point 50 years ago. Rather, I am suggesting that what you have to say is 'bad'/'undesirable' on moral grounds. Finally, I see no connection between saying that consent/support among peoples now living in Yugoslavia for the nationalist movements responsible for so much human suffering is somthing these peoples are accountalbe for and your claim that I am being racist in making this claim. I am granting these peoples the capacity to make conscious decisions. The decisions people make in activly or passivly supporting a political movement of this nature are serious and have dramatic consequences. I never said that all 'Serbs' are bad or are all nationalists. Those peoples who choose to support nationalist racism (whether they are political elites or not) are guilty for the consequences of their decisions. Ciao, Peter. ------------------
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