Re: On patronization (Was: "Knowing what to do next")

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Scott:
>2) Nobody asked me until now to "string 5 fucking paragraphs together about
>the importance of the fucking mass line". I don't think you are really
asking
>me to either. It seems clear that you have no particular interest in it.
>However, as I mentioned in my initial posting on this topic, I have about
2/3
>of a long book on the topic already posted on the Web at:
>http://members.aol.com/TheMassLine  If anyone is actually interested in a
>fairly short, but moderately comprehensive introduction to the theory of the
>mass line, I suggest they read the first 3 short chapters, which total about
>9 pages. If those who get that far think there might possibly be some points
>of interest in the mass line after that, I suggest reading next chapter 4,
>and then either continuing in order, or hopping about as you please. Chapter
>32 is a short history of the origin and development of the mass line.
>

I urge comrades to review Scott's book. It is a useful tutorial on how the
American left destroyed itself. It is laced with out-of-context quotes from
Lenin and Mao which are interspersed among bromides such as:

"Yes, the party is distinct from the masses, but it must also be one with
the masses. Its members must live the life of the masses, it must champion
the interests of the masses, and only their interests, and it must
participate with all its energy in the actual struggles of the masses. The
party must educate the masses, and lead the masses, but not on the basis of
being an alien body expressing different interests and purposes than the
masses-that is the bourgeois way, and a way which must ultimately fail."

With vaporous homilies such as this, no wonder American Maoism has remained
a carnival side show.

Louis Proyect
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