Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 15:59:55 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Raw meat & Boiled Potatoes


emerald-AT-aztec.asu.edu (MARK ADKINS) writes:

Marky Boy,

You say alot of silly, stupid things.  You refuse to answer many of my
points.  You continue to insist on writing manuscripts...  You still after
mnay explanations don't understand what is meant by 'idealism'.  You don't
know what I mean by 'objective':  Lets start there, FOOL:

Objective, in the philosophical, & marxist sense means something which
exists regardless of human conciousness.  In other words, it doesn't matter
if I know that the earth is round.  It is (presumably).  Workers
conciousness has nothing, ZERO, FOOL, ZERO to do with there objective
characteristics.

>I grasp it very well.  I also grasp the fact that a ruling class
>consisting of 90 percent of the population does not need to rule by
>"dictatorship."  I grasp the fact that there is a difference between

O.K. fine.  Marxist are not obssesed with terminology.  Don't call it a
dictatorship.  I don't care.  What is important is the concept, the idea
that workers will rule/run society absolutly.

>rule by the people and rule by a bunch of strictly self-anointed 
>arbiters of the people's will, i.e., rule in the name of the people by
>some party constituting only a small fraction of the people, as in
>Lenin's dictatorship of the revolutionary vanguard (not proletariat).

FOOL.  FOOL.  FOOL.

What are you talking about?  If you want to discuss the russian revolution
say so & we can engage in the subject.  Anyway, Lenin never said (and as I
pointed out before it doesn't matter if he did say) anything about
dictatorship of the vanguard.

>I grasp the fact that most people lack the aggressiveness, the
>the ruthlessness, the self-righteousness, and the organization of 
>professional revolutionaries, and that any seizure of power by the latter
>is likely to result in a tyranny over the former unless the structures of
>the new government are designed with a strong system of checks and 
>balances and formal recognition of the equal (and substantive) civil 
>rights of all individuals.

Here we go again, FOOL.  Listen, you have no understanding of historical
materialism.  Your argument boils down to the most lame argument out there,
"Human Nature" crap. Please.
Anyway, marxists don't deny that TODAY "most people lack the aggressiveness, the
>the ruthlessness, the self-righteousness", or in other words, most people
are not class-conciouss, are not looking towards over throwing capitalism,
fighting for socailism, most people are oppressed, don't stand up for
themselves, don't evan know they are oppreseed.  Yes, so what.  You don't
seem to understan d1% of the marxist argument.

People are not static.  Under different historical conditions people act
differently.  In 1915 every stupid idiot repeated whta you said.  In 1918
they all shut up.  Marxists argue that the objective factors will force the
conciousness of the masses to change, possibly quite quickly (look at USA
1930s w/the formation of the CIO in a yaer or 2).  FOOL.

>I also grasp the fact that after the institutions of state power
>come under the control of these professional revolutionaries, the
>people at large are all but powerless to change conditions by 
>revolutionary means.  This is particularly true where the 

No FOOL.  Revolutionaries only take power when the whole of the population
is agitated, when people activly take part in politics, when everybody
realizes that everything is not working and must be fundementally changed --
a proletarian revolution happens not due to sectret marxist planning, but by
the actions of the mass of workers:  Strikes, general strikes, marches,
riots, elections, MASS armed uprsings, etc, etc.  Look at the Paris Commune
or 1917 -- these were results of mass actions, the throughing up of communes
or soviets were organs of mass participation, debate, discusion, action.  FOOL.

>completely ruthless, having no respect for morality or individual

Do you believe that there is some absolute morality that applys today just
as much in 1000 B.C.?  Is ther such thing as morality?  What is it, FOOL?
Who defines it?

What are individual rights?  Have they allways existed?  Why did they come
about?  Who's intrests did they serve?  Are they absolute or relative?  Are
they decress from God, your mouth or 'natural law'?  FOOL.

>their dogma.  For an example of the Orwellian horrors which await the

George Orwell was a marxist. He was a socialist.  He was in fact an
Trotskyist:  Do you know what that means?  His writings that you are
refering to (1984 & animal farm) are attacks on STALINISM.  These are facts
(if you don't believe go read a Orwell biography).  His Book _Homage to
Catolina_ about the spanish civil war is how the stalinists (the Communist
Party) were the ones who were counter-revolutionary, who conciousllyy
destryed the revolution and allowed Franco to win.  His book animal farm is
a pardy of how stalin seized power and how the USSR was a betrayl of the
revolution on 1917.  IDIOT.

>I grasp the fact that it is difficult enough to organize people to
>form a simple block watch anti-crime program in their own immediate 
>and tangible self-interest, even when this involves nothing more than
>a commitment to peep out of their windows from time to time and to
>report suspicious activity to the police, much less to form armed

In the 1950s it was hard to get black people to fight for their civil rigts.
All of a sudden that changed in the late 50's, 60s.  Why?  In 1962 every
college student was "well behaved".  In 1968 they were rioting and occupying
there colleges -- get the point.  Things change.  The world is Dynamic.  At
one point gays & lesibans accepted there oppresion -- not anymore.  FOOL.

>These ideas seem plausible to you only because you have a child's
>understanding of human psychology and of the practical logistical

Is there a universal human psychology?  Or does it change with social
conditions?

>I know very well what happens to idealists like you once the 

I am not an idealist I am a MATERIALIST.  Do you get it?

>>Anyhow, the whole point of the Dictatorship of the proletrait (DOP) is
>>to destroy ALL classes (including the working class), destroy the state
>>(the instrument of class 'dictatorship').
>
>More utopian claptrap.  

No, FOOL.  THe DOP destroys the capitallist class be seperating it from the
means of production (capital).  It therefore is no longer a capitalist
class.  The class struggle therby ends -- workers are no longer workers:
they no longer own simply their labor power which they sell to the
capitalist.  If classes wither away, and The state is the instrument of
class domination, the state also withers away: there are no class to dominate.

Do you think the State has allways existed?  Are classes are permanent
thing?  Have they allways existed?

>Furthermore, Comrade Locker, I fail to see why, if you "reject morality,"
>you then "go along with it" -- in fact, using it as the basis of 
>argument.

My point was that if you are going to give a "moral" judgement of the DOP it
can not be based on the fact that it is a dictatorship (MEANS), but on the
basis of its ENDS.

Anyway, what kind of moralist are you if you accept that means are justified
by the ends?

>>>Savor the irony: Locker accuses me of "idealism" yet believes in 
>>>mystical claptrap like "the objective laws of history" -- and that
>>
>>You obviously did not understand my explanation of idealism.  As i said
>>before idealism in the philosophical sense means believing reality is 
>>made up of idesa.  This has nothing to do with the common  expresion 
>>"idealism" which reffers to "unpracticle" or utopioan or stupid ideas
>>-- do you get it now?
>
>Reality is obviously made up of both abstracts and concretes.  If

Boy, aren't you smart.  Do you have any idea what you are talking about.
Have you read any philosophy?  The most basic question of ALL philosophers
(Plato, Kant, Hume, etc, etc, Name anyone) is WHat is reality?
You are a genius.  "Reality is obviously"...its so clear and simple.

Read Bertrand Russels _Problems of Philosophy_

Are you an indealist or Materialist?  Or maybe an eclectic -- empiricist,
agnostic, positivist, etc.

>The fact that theory and practice are not always identical is obvious,
>but immaterial to whatever degree to which practice actually

It has nothing to do with theory or practice.  Was the right to vote given
to women in the USA because we have  a good constitution (IDEA) or because
women struggled and ripped a privalege out of the hands of the rullers
(Materialist)? {only meant to be an concrete example btwn. idealist &
materilaist understanding of history).

>>If you don't believe in laws of history, please explain to us why 
>>bourgeois democracy (nation state, "bill of rights" type laws, 
>>parliament, etc) all appeared at a certain point in history.  Why?  
>>what forces did they satisfy?
>
>They didn't appear at a certain point in history.  They appeared

Or really?  Name the last parliament durring the Middle Ages?

You need to read some history.  Bourgeios rights have appeared durring the
last few centuries, starying with the english revolution, American, French,
etc, etc, upto today.

>to the extent that these ideas, strategies, and success stories are 
>communicated from one place and/or time to another.  But these are
>not "laws" of history.  You have given no examples of such "laws,"

So I ask the question:  If John Locke had been born in 1125 would they have
set up parliaments back then?  If not, why...was it due to the socail
conditions (therefore objective factors, therefore you 2 subscribe to the
theory of laws of history)

>>
>>>As long as we're discussing history, perhaps history has something
>>>to say about the practical consequences of this kind of UTOPIAN
>>>drivel?  Listen very carefully, Philip.  "Kronstadt...the post-
>>>revolutionary Constituent Assembly...the Cheka..."  Can you hear
>>>history whispering to you?  All of this idealistic talk has been
>>
>>You belive that 1 man, Lenin, could due to his own evil or good 
>>intentions cause all of the above to happen.
>
>Rubbish.  
>
>>What happened happened not because of the ideas of Bolshevism but 
>>because of the contradictions of capitalism, the contradictions of a
>>woprkers state in a backward & isolated country.
>
>What happened was the predictable result of a dictatorship.  The
>political ideology of the dictators (in this case the Soviet Communist
>Party and its secret police organs) was almost irrelevant., except to
>the extent that it reflected a ruthless, amoral, and stupid dogma.

Yes -- you think that if the bolsheviks had been different (if they had not
been dictators) than everything would have been different.  If only you were
there, you would have convinced Lenin & he would have convinced the
Bolsheviks & then the uSSR would hav ebeen fine.  That is your theory of
history.  What happened had nothing to do with the social conditions which
forced certain legal relations to appera, or due to the actions of the
masses of russians...no it was due to the dictatorship of the russian CP!
But what allowed the commies to take power in the first place?  FOOL.


>>if you want an explanation of STALINISM ask for one
>
>Stalinism?  Stalinism was merely the exaggeration of an already
>existing dictatorship, further concentrated into one man's hands.

No.  Are you aware of a man called Trotsky or the theory of Permanent
Revolution?

>Dictatorship existed from the very beginning.  It began with the

No.

If you want to discuss the russian revolution and its degeneration
(stalinism) please ask.  If not, the topic is too big...

--
Philip Locker
Labor Militant 
NYC, USA



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