Re: Dialectical Emptyness

[bon moun <sherrynstan@xxxxxxx>]

>(Stan:)
>>Ad hominem argument.  A staple of the blame shifting tactic.
>
>(MT:)
>Not entirely.  Carrol had already pointed to communists charging other
>communists with simply reciting some orthodoxy, and therefore dismissing
their
>arguments.  If people who call themselves communists dismiss other communists
>on the same grounds that Carrol says the public-at-large dismisses them,
then
>they do have to share some of the blame for their plight.

Now, I think, we can put our finger on some real issues among Marxists and
feminists, and some of the comparisons might be helpful.  Sectarianism is a
problem.  But rather than simply make light of it--even though I enjoyed
the old scene about sectarianism in Life of Brian--or use it as an facile
argument against "communists", since I assume there are some of us here, we
might think about what leads to sectarianism?

External attack certainly exacerbates it, but it's too easy to put the
blame there.  I would welcome a discussion about this, because I suspect
clearing up this question will go some way to overcoming the
disorganization of the left.

There are real theoretical differences that lead to real practical
differences.  We have to deal with that.  Every successful revolution to
date has had to deal with it.  I think there are definite theoretical
flaws, as it were, that are black holes for for the left, and if that seems
sectarian, it's not meant to be.

But when feminists are saddled with caricatures, it is exploited by
anti-feminists when feminists charge other feminists with reciting some
othodoxy... and so it goes. It doesn't excuse us for doing the same thing.
It is still shifting the blame for reaction onto the target of that
reaction.  Let's face it.  A caricature is effective because it's 50%
right.  It's the other 50% that is so destructive.

There are plenty of professed radicals out there who are very orthodox in
their thinking, which is the antithesis of Marxism and Leninism, for those
of us who accept that label.  But when I hear "orthodox Marxists", 9 times
out of 10 the context is such that it is dismissive.
>
>(Stan:)
>>
>>Now the straw man is constructed, we can proceed to tear it apart.  This
>>whole description has nothing to do with the millions of communists around
>>the world who work their tails off every day, and who have genuinely
>>internalized social change as a vocation.  I would again appeal to you to
>>examine your own reactions to your own possible preconceptions about
>>communists and communism.
>>
>
>(MT:)
>If I built a straw man (which I admit that I did), it was intended to
represent
>not communists as a whole, but the people on this list and their quarrels.  I
>do not have any preconceptions about "communists" except that before
coming to
>this list, I thought of American communists as mainly people who lived on
>communes and shared all their material possessions, and other Communists
(such
>as in Kerala) as people who belong to Communist parties, and engage in party
>politics,  and sometimes are communists in name only, and sometimes engage in
>good work.

Precision of terms is important, no?  My own understanding of communist is
very specific, and definitely not someone on a commune.  Much more likely a
trade union organizer in the city, in the US anyway.

>(Stan:)
>>Thus?  Peggy, this doesn't respond to the argument at all.  It is only
>>responding to your own redefinition of the argument as invalid, based on
>>your characterization of communists.
>
>(MT)
>
>No.  I was in fact responding to what Carrol said:  (some) communists diss
>other communists, and accuse them of doing what anti-communists accuse all
>communists of doing.  Therefore, communists who do this are colluding in the
>dismissal-as-trivial of communism as a whole.

I would agree that people on the left in general should be more circumspect
in publicly criticizing one another "in front of" the right, just because
they think they are right.  It's egoism, sometimes exhibitionism, and
strategically it can be incredibly stupid.

>
>You (Stan) brought up the issue of anti-communism on the left, and you
used the
>word "McCarthyism,"  about which I _do_ have a lot of preconceptions, to do
>with HUAC, witch-hunts and so forth.

My bad.  Shorthand again.  The name stuck, while the McCarthy hearings were
just the most visible aspect of a very powerful push to destroy the left in
the US.  I strongly recommend Race Against Empire, by Peggy Von Eschen, for
a great account of how this whole attack on the left disrupted Civil Rights
struggles in this country, divorced the CR struggle from its pan-African,
anti-colonialist roots, buried the Committee on African Affairs, and
ostracized people like Robeson and DuBois.  This is a good account of the
instrumentality of what I refered to as McCarthyism, and how it was
directed ostensibly at Communists, but it was really directed at the whole
left, all in defense of the ruling class's global aspirations.
>
>Carrol, in a subsequent post, suggested that McCarthyism was an imprecise
word
>to describe the problem that you are describing.  I would agree with him on
>this point, because  the word "McCarthyism" is too fraught with specific
>historical memories to describe what is going on in the left right now.

Agree, but would add that it's still with us.  Ask anyone on the left about
the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and see how many of them can tell you what the
US-British role was in making that happen.  Ask anyone on the left what the
ogre Stalin's body count was, and you'll hear mind-boggling numbers, but no
citation of where those numbers came from, or the specific history of their
inflation to support ridiculous notions like "totalitarianism."  What we
reap now in confusion was sown in the McCarthy era, or whatever wone wants
to call it.
>
>Does that clear things up a bit?

Yes, and I hope this does, too.


Take care, my friend.

Solidarity,

Stan



"If insurrection is an art, its main content is to know how to give the
struggle the form appropriate to the political situation."

			-Vo Nguyen Giap



"Rather than seeking comparabilities in statistical terms among what are
all too often superficial features of different situations, comparabilities
must be sought at the level of determinate mechanisms, at the level of
processes that are generally hidden from easy view."

			-Eleanor Burke Leacock



"Every day one has to struggle that this love to a living humanity
transform itself into concrete acts, in acts that serve as examples, as
motivation."

			-Ernesto "Che" Guevara