Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 18:07:58 -0800
From: djones-AT-uclink.berkeley.edu (rakesh bhandari)
Subject: Re: Bombings, Surveillance, and Free Societies (fwd)



>I think I've said about a hundred times now that I think it's reckless to
>refer to a broad and complex social phenomenon as "the militias." That's
>why I kept putting it in quotes in my response to you, Rakesh. The broad,
>complex social phenomenon I'm speaking of is the bitterness of the white
>working class, which is taking many strange forms, militias one among many.
>Armed racists scare the hell out of me, and there's no question they're the
>enemy. My point is that it only serves elite purposes to code *all* white
>working class anger as armed racism. 

But, Doug, I don't know anyone on this line who has demanded gun control
against the workers in, for example, the Illinois Class War Zone. I would
imagine that most of them are "white" and heavily armed but this does not
inspire me to write my congressman demanding gun control.  You are really
setting up a strawman here: who has coded all white working class anger as
armed racism?  I think very few white working class people are burned up
about Ruby Ridge.  

I am  skeptical of the gun control movement but it seems to me to be based
not on the threat of armed racism but of the tragedies of urban violence. 
Still I am rather skeptical of gun control and have not rallied behind
that:  I consider myself neither a liberal nor a radical democrat, though I
am an unarmed NANA (Curtis Price's acronymn).  

(My biggest contribution to radicalism the last several months has been a
refusal to scab at the high school, though, as a former high school
teacher, the administration would give me $180/day (a handsome addition to
my $1000/mo as a grad student).  All those books and journals, Doug, I
could buy!)  

 I have not put Militias in quotes because I was talking about the real
Militias, with memories of the few nuts I saw on television at my parents
after the OK bombing (at home I only get a few stations, so I am miss out
on a lot of important information).  I have suggested why I am
uncompromisingly critical of a movement which takes "Ruby Ridge" as its
rallying cry; there are so many other government injustices to choose from.
 

As I suggested,  there are two reasons why radicals may attempt to prettify
the Militias: 1)to counteract the hysteria which is being used (despite the
so-called end of the nation-state) to justify the increase in government
control of everyday life and 2)because the Militias embrace certain
principles (autonomy, community, decentralization, anti-statism) a
post-Leninist left sees as worth affirming.

I don't like deceptive rhetoric but I am very interested in this question
of post-Leninism ( I am still looking for a reply to Mattick's critique of
Lenin in *Marxism: Last Refuge of the bourgeoisie?*).  

Indeed I think that an identification of a new politics with the Militias
will in my opinion only serve to invalidate this rethinking of radical
politics and the principles upon which it is based.  So there is this big
question  which has been at the back of my mind as we discuss this marginal
movement in the US.  

Now Louis has shown us a different side to the Militias than one would get
from television interviews or the Southern Poverty Law Conference Report
(though of course he got it from that rag THe New York Times).  Perhaps
after we have a chance to read Adolph Reed's critical essay on left support
for the Militias in an upcoming *Progressive*, we can resume this
discussion.  Always interested in your and Louis' views.  

Rakesh



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