Date: Wed, 06 Mar 1996 10:37:01 -0800
From: B Mayer <concrete-AT-idiom.com>
Subject: Re: Buchanan: right-wing populist?


L. Proyect reposts:

>For his part, Buchanan can listen to his deepest instincts, rant on about
>homosexuals, throw red meat to the Christian right, and scare every
>middle-of-the-roader away, or he can deepen his message of populist
>economic nationalism: Us against the Money Power, Us against the
>World. Now that the Russians aren't a problem anymore, right-wing
>populists can go back to talking about the banks and Wall Street.
>
>The elites must be feeling irked. Just when they had Clinton safely
>guiding the Democratic Party into well-patrolled corporate waters,
>with leftists purged or neutered, here comes a populist attacking big
>business, rocking their boat."

>(Alex Cockburn, in March 11, Nation)

Ryan-AT-bitstream.mpls.mn.us wrote:
> 
> rb: (Rakesh Bhandari)
> >As irresponsible as all you Militia symatheticos.  Don't you get it.  The
> >government kills a lot of people.  Why do Militia members go up in arms
> >when the FBI takes out that white supremacist Weaver or whatever his name
> >is? Why is it that this is what provokes them to start a movement, that
> >this becomes their symbol?  What does this tell you about the future they
> >want?  Weaver only wanted  his family to be free of the cities, minorities
> >and decadence.  And the government won't let us to do that?  Let's arm
> >ourselves.
> 
> I know this will be like splitting hairs, but I want to point out a few
> factual things. First Randy Weaver is a white separatist and not a white
> supremacist. White separatism is a movement that is actually fundamentalist
> Christian in origin. I'm not an expert on the subleties but roughly they
> believe that races should live separately, each with their own kind. There
> are rumors floating around the militia movement that the white separatists
> and NOI are talking to each other. I have no idea as to it's veracity.
> Anyway, where white supremacy (i.e. KKK) is generally shunned in the militia
> movement, white separatism is on the fringes of acceptability, even as most
> militia members do not agree with or practice Weaver's beliefs.<snip>
> These people are very small in number but they do exist. If you ever have the
> mind-blowing experience of going  to a big gun show with militia members,
> they will point out to you how some ways individuals in these small sects
> identify themselves to each other. One thing separatists might do is wear a
> small gold cross on their collar or hat.
> <snip>
> Does militia condemnation of the Ruby Ridge incident make them fascist? Are
> they likely to try and prevent the formation of a Labor Party in June?
> 
> Is it irresponsible to oppose a government that rules by fear, force and
> intimidation? The only reason they haven't gotten around to Marxists yet is
> because communism currently poses no threat to the ruling class. But we
> shouldn't forget our history. In my opinion we need to have a closer look at
> McCarthyism.
> 
> Sally Ryan
> 			Part One:
		
Although upon my vestments I wear a different sort of gold trinket from 
that borne by J. Miller, his characterization of Buchananism is real 
close to my mark on this score. Some comments:

	Cockburn's views on the US militia movement are but the flip 
side of the same coin of miscomprehension of the 
militia/Buchanan/fascism issue.  While some diehard left supporters of 
the Democratic Party wax hysterical over the militia movement or 
Buchanan as an already-realized "fascist" movement, those of Cockburn's 
views tend to idealize these as an "understandable" reaction to the 
inhuman policies of "New World Order" imperialist capital. S. Ryan is 
correct to point out the specifica differentia of the militia movement, 
but we cannot lose sight of the general features of such phenomena.  
There are some parallels here with the debate over the character of 
Farakkhan and the MMM, although unlike the MMM, it should be clear that 
the militias generally comprise a reactionary social base AND a (varied 
multitude of) reactionary ideologies. "White Separatism" can only amount 
to white supremacy in a world which, racially speaking, continues to be 
one oppressed by the "white race".  For this very same reason the case 
is the opposite for African separatism - this true independently of the 
reactionary character of Farakkhan's ideology.  R. Bhandari is correct 
in his reaction to the militias and in his criticism of the 
irresponsibility of "militia sympaticos", particularly in his suggestion 
that we arm ourselves - not "arm" a few bonehead leftists, of course, 
but arm the urban masses which is where our true political strength 
lies. The approach of Cockburn and Co. is nothing more than a feeble 
flight of fantasy over an "indigenous grass-roots resistence" against 
the imperialist regime designed as compensation for a lack of vision on 
how to win over the metropolitan working class.

	L. Proyect has correctly pointed out that this is not a period 
of the imminence of fascism in the U.S.: no mass threat from the working 
class, no period of acute economic crisis and depression.  All the 
stranger, then, the repost of Cockburn - unless the repost was an 
expression of deep disagreement.  If the militia movement is something 
we should have some "leftish" sympathy for, should not be something we 
should so quickly label as reactionary, then what does this suggest as 
to what should be our own approach to political reality in the U.S.? 
Should we not too, organize our own leftwing urban militias? After all, 
the militia constituancy is doing so, right now. I don't think so - this 
would be an "ultraleft deviation" if ever there was one. Beneath the 
militia "sympathizing" one can't help but see shades of the Weather 
Underground.

	More likely, L. Proyect intended the Cockburn repost to support 
his argument that, because we are not in a period of the imminence of 
fascism, THEREFORE phenomena such as the militias or the Buchanan 
campaign are simply not fascist; instead these are the mechanical 
repetition of the American tradition of rightwing populism.  It seems to 
me that this is a fine piece of "determinism" coming from such a 
resolute critic of "economic determinism".  It justifies as suspect such 
criticisms as more interested in the expulsion of structural economic 
considerations in the analysis of political phenomena, rather than in 
the excision of determinism from thought.  But isn't the suppression of 
Marxist political economy (i.e., _Capital_) the common thread that 
unites analytical Marxists, market socialists, left Keynesians and 
Althusserians?  That, of course, is another discussion.

	For those who might have missed the previous posts on my part 
concerning the Buchanan issue, here is a recap of the general conditions 
within which this issue must be seen:
	1) Capitalism as a whole has been in a general, structural 
crisis since ~1973, from which it has yet to extricate itself and which 
(I predict) it will be unable to overcome at least in the medium term, 
given the improbability of such cataclysmic events over that term, such 
as a third interimperialist world war, a gigantic upsurge of the working 
class in one or more imperialist countries, or the triumph of fascist 
regimes in the important imperialist countries;
	2) U.S. imperialism is no longer a beneficiary of two 
exceptional circumstances: a) the benefit of a relatively isolated 
development within a continent-country (19th century); b) a virtual 
monopoly of the productive forces, especially of the most technically 
advanced productive forces, in the aftermath of WWII; 
	3) Consequently, the structural relation of the U.S. to the rest 
of world capitalism and imperialism has changed for the worse, opening 
up a period without precedent in U.S. history. Even bourgeois 
commentators have begun to recognize this. 
	4) In reaction to its worsened relation, U.S. imperialism, in 
economic competition with its rivals, must exploit its two remaining 
advantages: a) its continued military supremacy and b) the relative 
weakness of the U.S. working class.  It is only these which keep the 
U.S. from falling from its throne due to 2) above.  In the same measure, 
these place the U.S. at the center of the structural economic crisis 
mentioned in 1), as the central *problem* of that crisis, as the driving 
force for the deepening of this crisis. The U.S. no longer appears as 
the "solution" as it has in the past.
	5) Finally, there are these important historical-political 
considerations to place atop the structural-economic items outlined 
here: a) the absence of a mass working class political party in the 
U.S.; b) since the collapse of the Stalinist regimes we have been in a 
period of *political transition* from the frozen class relations of the 
"cold war" to what will be an increasing class polarization due to 1)-4) 
above, one that will feature proto-revolutionary mobilizations of the 
working class on the one hand, and proto-fascist movements (either legal 
or extra-legal, it does not matter here at this level of analysis), on 
the other.

	In Buchananism we do not see a simple repetition of the pattern 
of rightwing populism - that is more a characteristic of the Perot 
phenomenon. Let's examine some of the elements of Buchananism, beginning 
with a distinction between the personage, Buchanan, and *Buchananism*. 
The failure to make this distinction clear has been the source of some 
confusion in the discussion of fascism. 

(To be continued....)

		-Brad Mayer

PS: Rakesh, what's a "dijerdoo"? Looking forward to the posts you 
mentioned.


     --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

     ------------------