File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1996/96-06-marxism/96-06-26.161, message 163


Date: Sun, 23 Jun 1996 13:43:30 +0100
From: m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Hugh Rodwell)
Subject: Re: Chiapas famine alert & some concrete controversy stop


Zeynep wrote:

>My dear yoldas Hugh-
>
>you are giving me pamphlet answers stop i know the basics of marxism stop
>the working class doesn't stop im trying to discuss how can we concretely
>develop the politics stop the left talks the talk stop but can't walk the
>walk stop
>stop lecturing me stop
>
>nice to see you posting again stop

Which was very nice but a bit unconsidered.

My references to what Marx had to say on the problem are not pamphlet answers.

Neither are my remarks on setting agendas.

If you work within a bourgeois agenda such as Free Trade vs Protectionism,
you're screwed from the start. If this is pamphlet stuff, it's a damn good
pamphlet!

The problems of getting  powerful sections of the working class to accept a
socialist agenda are what the discussion is all about -- once you've made
the essential distinction between a bourgeois and a socialist agenda.

By posing the question the way you did in relation to NAFTA or not, you
didn't make this essential distinction. Which is why I took you to task.

And if you thought what I was saying was so self-evident, why wasn't it
evident in your argument?

Also, examples of how not to choose from bourgeois menus have been given
before, the best example probably being the Bolshevik position on the
Imperialist war in 1914.

It wasn't easy, but it was possible because the positions of principle were
clearly formulated.

What I'm after is a clear formulation of principle so the political work
will be that much easier. Dismissing this as 'lecturing' is a cop-out.
Unless of course the essential principles are there in consensus and all
you need to do is realize them in action. Do you think this is the case?

Yoldasca,

Hugh






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