Re: Prof. combats ignorance about Islam, women

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Katha Pollitt wrote:

> No wonder the left and the women's movement are both in trouble.

Katha, I think I want to take up with you a debate (sometimes a
bit sharp) I've been having with Lou Proyect for over two years.
It started with a thread on Michael Moore's obnoxious *Nation*
column on the left's lack of humor -- and developed further in my
critique of Lou's critique of the "Leninist Party." I granted (mostly)
his analysis of that conception of the party, but argued that he
had his causal lines reversed -- that in fact the alleged weaknesses
of that conception of the party (the weakness at present of marxism
as a whole) was an *effect* rather than a *cause*. Or put
another way, the political history of the last 25 years was to
be seen not in terms of the internal weakness of the left but in
terms of the strength of capital.

Assuming for a moment the accuracy of your empirical description
of m-fem and femecon-l, I would argue that you are wrong to
move from that to your conclusion, "No wonder the left and the
women's movement are both in trouble." These lists are "strange"
because capital is strong: the weakness or "strangeness" of the
left at this time flows from the strength of U.S. capital, and only
as capital weakens (as it always does every so often) will the
left, including the women's movement, become less crazy
internally. In the meantime we just have to do our best not to
be too crazy.

Somtimes, no matter how correct one is in one's politics, one just
can't win. To think otherwise is voluntarist.

Carrol