L-I: RE: Gastro-Intestinal Fetishism

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: aabdo@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:aabdo@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2000 1:47 PM
To: leninist-international@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: L-I: Gastro-Intestinal Fetishism

Tony Abdo wrote:
Jim, it's good to see a dialog here, and now you have brought up some
real issues re: the effects on industrial whaling due to the Makah
tribe's resumption of their own whaling.      This is a key issue from
the Green angle.      Will indigenous people re-entering into
traditional whaling help industrial whalers, or hurt them in the long
run?      It's clear that the Makah did not convince many in the general
population, that their fight to resume this activity would not have a
harmful effect by giving impetus to the efforts of industrial whalers.

Response (JC): Since I live right in the middle of all of this, I am
wondering where your notion--and evidence--of the "general population" not
supporting Makah whaling comes from. The Sea Fascists/Racists [Shepherd) are
a tiny legend-in-their-own-minds segment of the general population. Even
among the self-professed Greens, there are some sharp differences on the
Makah issue. Greenpeace (who threw Paul Watson of the Sea Fascists/Racists
out for excessive self-promotion and wreckless adventurism), for example,
has never come out against the Makah or even against the ASW (Aboriginal
Subsistance Whaling) exemption of the IWC Convention which covers the Makah.
The Seattle times/PI in one of their polls found over 50% of those polled
supporting Makah whaling rights if indeed they were protected by Treaty.

Further, the Makah cannot help how others attempt to use their cause. But as
a matter of pure logic, the Makah negotiated the ASW exemption with the IWC
after it was initially supported by the U.S. Government (not exactly fond of
any Aboriginal Treaties) and since the Makah keep to the letter of their
1855 Treaty as they demand that the other parties keep to the letter of that
Treaty, well actually the enforcement of Makah Treaty rights, rather than
creating a "slippery slope" of "precedent" for the industrial whaling powers
to use, creates another precedent--that Treaties should be respected and
kept once entered into--that binds rather than frees the industrial whaling
powers as the IWC Convention is itself a TREATY to which the industrial
whaling powers are signatories. Further, the Chukotki, aboriginal Inuit of
Russia have been taking 165 gray whales per year for the last 40 years with
not a word of protest by the Sea Fascists/Racists and that quota was cut
down to 124 with the makah quota of no more than 5 whales per year taken
from the overall Chukotki quota authorized by the IWC as they visited the
Makah and found them to be in the identical situation with the Chukotki and
therefore entitled to the ASW exemption.


Tony Abdo wrote:
Also, you hold non-Marxists to a higher standard than you do Marxists.
You refer to 'all sorts' of gay activists, feminists, Greens.      But
then the standard becomes 'true Marxist" only.     How about the record
of 'all sorts' of marxists on questions involving ecology, women, Gays,
and even indigenous people?       These 'all sorts' of Marxists have
'all sorts' of records in regard to how they treated the interests of
even the people they supposedly were most concerned about, 'workers',
let alone the supposed others.

Response (JC): Have we met? Do you know me? you have no concept of what
standards I hold self-professed Marxists or Indigenous activists to
vis-a-vis non-Marxists.
You can set up "strawpersons" and caricatures of what I have said and what I
believe but you know nothing about what I believe or what standards I hold.
For example, among Indian activists we have some very concerned about racism
against Indians but then turn around and tell homophobic jokes or refer to
women as "bitches"; the disconnect, ultra-reductionism and hypocrisy I note
and do indeed call them punks. Yes, as in the name of "Christianity", in the
name of "Marxism" all sorts of horrors have been--and are being--committed
and those who do so I also refer to as punks (I have heard some so-called
Marxists refer to Indigenous activists as backward "primitive communalists).
But one can call oneself--and many do--"Green" and yet retain homophobic,
racist, imperialist, sexist attitudes without seeing the disconnects and
hypocrisy; the same cannot be said about "real" Marxists. One can call
oneself a "gay activist" or concerned with gay issues--and many do-- and yet
show no concern with--or be on the opposite sides of--Green issues, sexism
(except as it relates to gay issues specifically), Indigenous rights, racism
etc; the same cannot be said about real Marxists. One can call onself a
"feminist"--and many do--and yet be totally unconcerned with--and have
nothing to say about--imperialism, racism, poor women or women of color,
Indigenous rights etc, but the same cannot be said about real Marxists.

Tony Abdo wrote:

How would we react to these groups of people referring to us as
steel-grinding marxist punks, just to take an example?

Response (JC):
For some supposed and self-proclaimed "Marxists" the term might well fit. It
the shoe fits... My mother used to say: "only the truth stings, and even
then, only when it is from a worthy source for worthy motives."

Tony Abdo wrote:

I personally think that it is wrong to write a blank check for all
Native Americans, or all Blacks, or all Hispanics, or all women, or all
gays, or so on.      This is often called giving support to
self-determination.    It does a lot of harm to the radical movement to
approach politics from this mind set.

What it does concretely, is to sanctify elements within an oppressed
group that may have less than 100% support even within their own
communities.      Often a small number of minority activists vocally
represent themselves as being THE INTERESTS of all the group they claim
to represent.     Then they march off to get the dominant group's
approval for whatever project that they are pushing.

Response (JC): I suspect I am much more aware of the hetereogeneity in
Indian Country than you are. The main targets of my own activism have been
corrupt and sell-out Indians in Indian Country; Those activists who claim to
be representative of the interests of ALL of a group would not be real
Marxists (Indian Country is as divided along classes and strata as the
non-Indian world) and certainly not serious activists. Further, I have
nothing to do with the "dominant groups" except to attempt to expose them
and their machinations; I most certainly never seek their "approval" for
anything; in fact what they oppose, I generally support and what they
support I generally oppose. Another strawperson or caricature of my own
positions.

Tony Abdo wrote:
Marxists need to find some balance in how they formulate political
positions.     There has to be more effort, than either in wholely
rejecting all issues that are not 'workers issues'  as being 'petty
bourgeous', etc.    Or, alternatively, giving  knee jerk acceptance of
all issues that spring forth out of all groups of oppressed groupings,
as being worthy of unmitigated support at all times.      A little more
judgement is called,  for than in just resorting to surrendering
critical judgement, within these 2 extremes.

Response (JC): What makes a position or even movement "petit-bourgeois" is
not the focus on "workers" versus "non-workers" issues, what makes a
position or movement petit-bourgeois is the focus on narrow, personalized,
narcissistic issues to the neglect--and/or in contradiction with--principled
and consistent concern and positions on other related issues and not linking
the various issues up into a coherent systemic view of the ultimate causes
and remedies. When purely personal activities such as recycling for example,
are the be-all and end-all of one's commitment and such personal indulgences
are portrayed as revolutionary and sufficient, that reflects the typical
mentality and position of a petit-bourgeois. Or when the logic and position
on one issue is not extended to another related issue, that reflects a
petiti-bourgeois mentality. Or when one's "revolutionary concerns" are tied
to a personalized list of the more personally congenial causes
or about which one has personal interests--to the exclusion of other worthy
and related causes--that reflects the typical petit-bourgeois (sort of like
Mary Tyler Moore and other celebs doing charities only for those diseases
from which they or their relatives personally suffer). So a real Marxist
conerned with liberation from all forms of oppression must be lead
inexorably by principle and logic to be concerned about sexism, racism,
ethnocentrism, environmental destruction, homophobia, destruction of species
of life forms, imperialism, Zionism, Indigenous rights, genocide
etc--although one cannot work as a specialist on all of those issue areas.

Tony Abdo wrote:
'True marxists' need to be neither Stalinist minded thugs/ Naderite
super-economists, nor bleedng-heart liberals.


Response (JC) my mother used to define a "bleeding-heart liberal" as someone
who "bleeds--for and with--the blood of others". She detested the liberals
(with their personally comfortable and non-threatening "menus of acceptable
causes and positions"--the ones that are not personally or systemically
threatening) even more than the rightists who were at least open in their
callousness, racism, sexism, selfishness etc. But I am more concerned with
what people actually do--beyond typing on keyboards--rather than what they
call themselves--with some exceptions of course.

Jim Craven


Tony Abdo




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