Re: To Nancy Brumback

["bon moun" <sherrynstan@xxxxxxx>]

> You are not a Marxist.

Does this mean she doesn't believe in full immersion baptism?

>
> Let's be clear: Marxists are a diverse lot but we generally agree that
> the working class is the primary oppressed and exploited class in the
> capitalist economic system, i.e., the majority of the world's humanity.

I'm a marxist, I think, unless I am to be excommunicated, and I can't be
sure I agree with that at all.  Can you provide some documentation for your
claim that the majority of humanity is working class?  While I would agree
that the wc is in the most direct, inextricable, and antagonistic
relationship with the ruling class, it doesn't automatically follow that
(1) this is some kind of "primary" oppression or (2) the wc is the only
truly revolutionary class (a claim I sometimes hear from comrades).

> The oppressed and exploited in the capitalist system are the working
> class.  That class includes workers, the so-called reserve army of
> unemployed, women workers, gay workers, workers anywhere, of any
> background, poets, artists, musicians, etc.

They are also peasants in the periphery, women who are not workers, LGBT
folk who are oppressed on behalf of an ideology that supports the sexual
division of labor of the last century, etc, etc, etc.  Capitalists DIRECTLY
extract surplus value from the sweat of workers, but they indirectly do the
same to many other groups and classes, and that's precisely what I hear
Nancy saying.

> We do not think this can be achieved by someone announcing their pesonal
> freedom, going back to nature, and setting up an ecologically green
> business venture while humanity in the largest sense goes on being
> oppressed and exploited by the grand business venture called
> capitalism.

We also don't believe it can be accomplished by belittling comrades with
straw man caricatures.

We don't believe the world can be saved if capitalism is
> allowed to run rampant, and, by the way, we think that's the only way it
> can run.

No, we believe it can be saved by posting to the internet.

> We don't think being nice and polite to gay capitalists is going to make
> the world a better place, except for the very few gay capitalists.
> There are many of us who are gay, anyway. It's just not the point.

Precisely not the point. The point is we should be in the forefront of the
fight against homophobia and not require wc status as a litmus test for
whether we fight against homophobia.  We should not continue to adhere to
the linear and schematic "class trumps other oppressions" notions, and we
should quit being so gaddamned defensive when it's correctly pointed out
that eurocentric male marxists have in the past and present been
insensitive to forms of oppression outside the metropolitan male-dominated
homophobic work place.

> Nowadays, among Marxists, it goes without saying that sexual preferences
> are not a factor in our collective struggle.

And as long as we say that, we can expect LGBT people, even those who might
be attracted to historical materialism and scientific socialism, to give us
a pass, because we just told them that we'd "overlook" who they are, and
fail to validate or directly fight against the very real and oppressive
conditions in their lives.

We have no prejudices
> against gays; we demand full rights for all people in a democratic,
> egalitarian world community.

Cop out.  Substitute blacks for "gays" in that sentence, and see how it
sounds.


> It goes without saying that those rights must include women as well as
> any gender. We argue that the rights of women, gays and oppressed
> minorities in our various capitalist states must be advanced and
> defended.  But primarily we want to get beyond the point where we have
> to.

What does THAT mean?  You can count this marxist out of that "we."

Marx was once asked what he admired most in men, and answered, "Strength."
He was then asked what he admired most in women, and he answered,
"Weakness."  He was a great thinker, and we owe him much, but we can not
overlook his shortcomings and errors, unless we are to make a religion of
marxism, and a messiah of Marx.  So there are my Marx quotes for today's
exigesis.



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