Re: Harpoon Not, Lest Ye Be on the Dinner Menu Next

["Doyle Saylor" <djsaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings Comrades,
    Where L. Safi writes about various people on this list like this,

Layla,
May I suggest,  that to make these sort of announcements that Juan,
Jose, Macdonald,  Professor Craven, and others feel that they should do,
as spokespeople for the oppressed, labelling others as Hitlerite,
granola-terrorists, racist-fascist, people-hating, objectified object
loving cockroaches on the LIST.... is nothing more than akin to knights
riding up to rescue damsels in distress.

Phony Marxist PC claptrap as we do as the oppressed tell us that they
want done, we are their humble servants, enlisted with the noble defense
of their virtue against the onslaught of vileness and cruel disrespect.
We are the leaders in that we follow those that we as leaders have
deemed as those that should be followed unconditionally and without
questioning because they have suffered in the past that only we know how
it has been, not them eco-Nazis.

Doyle
One of the most important aspects of a Marxist point of view is how class
shapes that view of things.  How do you understand class as being part of
this ecological problem?  I don't think of Jim Craven as any kind of phony.
He doesn't like you and wants to characterize you in a way that gives the
whole world his feelings about you.  But he is sincere and also trying in
extremely hard and in difficult circumstances to fight for Native American
rights in a Marxist context.

Class affects every human group, some people are workers and some aren't.
But oppression in this economic system is centered upon class.  In that
sense how do you understand hunting whales in a Marxist sense?

Louis  has oft stated and I think it right that we try to use our brains
here to make a point.  You can boldly tell people to not call you a granola
eater, but the other part is to contribute to the up lifting of class
content and meaning to things.  Class is ultimately about the economic
system and how it manifests itself in ways that socialism would not.

I don't think you are looking at anybody you list as comrades.  I mean a
great socialist movement means vast numbers of people with considerable
specific life differences being forged into a whole that is fighting against
many multiple battles at once.

My favorite battler on the ecological side of things was Judi Bari.  She
always focused upon workers and what that meant in the timber industry that
was central to the fight in the U.S. west.  People who drive the logging
truck that would flip you the bone as they drove by, she would try to
engage, and make solidarity with.  Patiently explaining the issues of
sustainable work, what having old growth meant for the richness of the
planet etc.

You can of course fight with people here, until Louis grows impatient with
lack of content, but the reason you can fight is because this list is full
fighters.  But I think what Louis often says is well worth keeping in mind,
use this forum as an opportunity to deepen the discussion.  Also to keep in
mind that Marxist and Marxism is about the working class and especially to
keep in mind the example of Judi Bari, which is to view people in the
working class as great potential allies and comrades even though as they
drive the logging truck by, they yell out the window 'get a job'.

As to your comments about cars, what is the substance of your comments?  So
what, if you are flailing around coming up with this or that or the other,
most of these people on this list are well educated and the level of
discussion needs to get more respectful of their merits.

A movement that demands people pay attention to your point of view when
their livelyhood is smashed.  A movement by out-lawing of economic practices
that is all that is available to working people is not going to make much
progress under those circumstances by not understanding the difficulties
imposed upon working people by care-less enthusiasms.  In that sense Jim
Craven is right to point out that Makeh people need to kill whales like any
other important resource in their world.  The larger issue of who needs to
die in the ecological sphere can't be decided by the Makeh people, but by
the largest and most powerful structures in society.  The capitalist decide
what is profitable.  We aren't going to change anything until we confront
that enemy.

We can't do anything about cars without confronting capitalism.  And only
the working people have the political strength to do that.

Layla writes,
...It is reductionism,  and objectifying of both the Makah
and the grey whales, to see this issue in that light.

Doyle
What is reductionism?  Are you asking Jim Craven about his reductionist
opinion.  If ever there was anti-reductionist, he is it.  Reductionism it
seems to me was and is an extremely small branch of philosophy that hardly
anybody adheres to except the bit about one reduces the whole to the parts.
And that is not usually something people have a philosophy about, but is
simply the common practice.  In essence then where you say for example Jim
Craven is a reductionist, I wonder about the clarity of the thought you are
trying to assert.

Clarity of thought will build a movement.  Saying someone is something or
other without taking the time if that is called for to really examine their
thoughts, does not build much of anything.  It shows you are motivated to
say a lot of your strong feelings in a large group of people, but I want to
understand the ecological issues in a Marxist sense.

Dennis Redmond writes,
All whales aren't alike; apparently there are actually a variety of
distinct species, as different from one another as humans are to
gorillas. Maybe dolphins return the favor, and think all land-mammals
look alike ("creatures-which-thrash-around-a-lot-with-four-limbs").

-- Dennis

Doyle
You are anthropomorphizing whales.  The substance of your comments are about
the consciousness of these animals.  What do you really know about that sort
of thing.  You write pithy statements in reply, but are not putting much
effort in to the substance of your comments.  What precisely has the above
to do with class?  The issue of the rights of an animal in the current state
of capitalism needs to be placed in that context.  In other words the
mammoth social system being created by human beings touches upon every last
living thing.  How does one really think about the consciousness issues of
other animals, and in a larger sense about everything from one celled
creatures on up.

Your pithy statements do not acknowledge that depth of thinking needed.
Alluding to Melville as a touchstone of depth is not enough.  You must show
something in your thinking that goes beyond silly interpretations of what
other animals could possibly be thinking.
cheers,
Doyle Saylor