Forwarded from Anthony (NYT)

[Charles Brown <BrownBingb@xxxxxxx>]

"Kenneth Campbell" <kkc@xxxxxxxxxxxx>


Why are the "shrill left" behaving like that? Where their words say one
thing, yet their concrete social behavior is the opposite? As Guevara
notes, people will generally come to the conclusion they are lying. What
else could it be? Are they mentally unbalanced? There must be another
agenda. What could that be? Power seems likely -- that is what they are
always talking about.

^^^^^

CB: Lenin did subtitle _Leftwing Communism_  "an infantile disorder". There
is no "psychoanalysis" in the book that I recall, but I always thought that
was a sort of half humorous and polite way of saying "you all act crazy".
Given that the phenomenon of the current day ,similar folks does seem
immature often, Lenin might have had a psychoanalytic insight on this. This
means that this type will proabably always be part of the radical mix. Hell,
I'm sure there's some petit bourgeois, ultra-leftism in me. So, we might as
well figure out a general method of damage control , both in the movement and
in ourselves. It really is not surprising that a certain percentage of every
generation alienated by capitalism , and then aware, and then angered by the
shock of their awareness of how much they and others are being screwed, would
go a little nuts about it, overdo it, act out a somewhat distorted Marxism or
other radical anti-capitalist ideology. As I say, I know I have.