Re: [A-List] GM

[Jim Craven <omahkohkiaayo@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

And those who are not afraid of the capitalist realm by actively
participating in it are dismissed as having sold out, whereas in
reality, passive participants, which includes everyone alive, are the
real sell outs, for they will never find the real enemy let alone fight
it. To defeat your enemy, you would have to begin to get to know the
enemy a lot better tahn most Marxists. Marx was a great thinker, but he
has been dead for more than a century. Life moves on. New unknown
diseases are now threatening the destruction of the human race. It is
time to look at reality with open eyes to carry on the task that Marx
began rather than languish in dead orthodoxy.

Henry C.K. Liu


Response Jim C:

Dead on Henry and it is a point that Marx himself made over and over
as in his letter to Arnold Ruge in 1843: "If the construction of the future
and its completion for all time is not our task, all the more certain what we
must accomplish in the present: I mean, the ruthless criticism of everything
that exists; the criticism being ruthless in the sense that it fears neither its
own results nor conflict with the powers that be."

Further, the mandate is not only to use the classics in order to go beyond
them in analyzing conditions and realities of capitalism not foreseen or
addressed by the likes of Marx et al, but also to develop collectively some
sense and analysis--and related praxis--vis-a-vis the most burning issues
and most critical vulnerabilities of the system itself. It means going beyond
narrow and self-absorbed "identity politics", sectarianism, sterile quote mongering,
tiresome Trotsky versus Stalin bullshit, etc that infests--and indicts--many of the
presumed "Left" as patently irrelevant if not also patently diversionary from real
praxis and analysis--and therefore reactionary in content and effect.

What we have now in the U.S. and Canada is smorgesbord or buffet politics. MY
thing is such and such so this is the front on which I work...A lot of it based on
personal interests, identity issues, career choices, academic market niches etc
with little attention to what and on what basis do we identify the issues and struggles
most in need of immediate attention and most likely to produce some tangible exposing
of the system and those who run/profit from it.

Some people wonder how the likes of David Horowitz could go from self-professed Marxism
to fascism. For some of us who read Horowitz's meager contributions in the 60s and 70s and
who met him need not wonder. I would argue that no real Marxist, with the soul and passions
of a real one (remember Horowitz was just as virulent and strident in his faux Marxist rhetoric
as anything on some of these "revolutionary lists" today and thus rhetoric and quote mongering
do not a real Marxist make) could go from real Marxism to fascism; possibly from Marxism to liberalism
from getting "tired", "impatient" or "acquired interests" but not to fascism. Anyone going from
supposed Marxism to fascism I would argue was never a real Marxist in the first place. And it
is interesting to note how many former "leftists" now fascists or who became fascists were from
certain well known sects (the ones well known for splitting and know-it-all-ism on the nominal left).

Horowitz was always as far as I remember, a house Marxist type, an academic and like the POMOs,
in love with his twisted syntax and esoteric verbal and written rhetoric. His kind spent his time with
books and fellow legend-in-their-own-mind academic types and seldom if ever rubbed shoulders with
the "great unwashed" who are the subject and object of Marxist-Leninist theory and praxis. Because
revolution is some kind of academic market niche, or a notch on the ol CV or some kind of hobby or
intellectual exercise, they never see and feel--in tangible terms--the real pain and suffering of those
whose liberation they claim to be dedicated to; and for these types, the transition from supposed
Marxism to fascism is not that problematic and not likely to produce a lot of cognitive dissonance.

Plus the left in the U.S. like the right has its own demagogues, opportunists and outright psychopaths,
sociopaths and self-absorbed narcissists that do for the Cause what Jaws did for ocean bathing. The Left
has to face up to the need for internal house cleaning and the fact that spewing out formulaics and
quotes from the classics--quotes that do not even address any real or burning issues today--is not only
a cheap and safe substitute for real revolutionary praxis, it is diversionary from and damaging to the
real thing.

Jim C.


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