Re: Parting words on Leo Panitch and company

["Patrick Bond" <pbond@xxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Louis Proyect" <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>
> Patrick, what sort of nonsense is this? If you describe my question at
> Columbia as "brutal", no wonder you would think my critique of Panitch
> amounted to "slagging". I asked you whether there were stirrings in the
> South African CP over Mbeki's rightward shift? What is particularly
> "brutal" about that?

Ah memories. Xxxx had you ripping the five-point typology I set out, because
there were no explicitly socialist currents within the 'Global justice
movements' (in my view because our team hasn't yet made a sufficient
impact). Brutal because if I worked a bit harder on decoding socialism in
all those movement projects, it wouldn't be hard to separate the
revolutionaries in various settings from the reformists. Never mind, not so
important, just a matter of cleaning up that table (which I'm doing tonight
for a publisher's deadline, so my memory of late April is maybe more acute
than yours).

> We are obviously dealing with cognitive dissonance here. You viewed my
> reply to Panitch as disrespectful. Why? Because I said that to talk about
> socialism without reference to revolution is like talking about bringing
> children into the world without acknowledging the need for sex? The main
> problem with the SR crowd is that they obfuscate this all-important
> question in the name of classical Marxism.

Well maybe that's a fair critique, though you'd admit we're all suffering a
time in which few proletarian revolutions are rearing their heads. On the
other hand, few other 'classical marxists' do serious work on all the other
vital elements of holistic, non-reformist anti-capitalist agitation, which I
find the SR crowd generally so well disposed towards.

> As far as "shitting" on Ellen Meiksins Wood is concerned, comrades can
> decide for themselves if that is what I did ......

Ok ok, isn't it a better use of our next few hours to track the demos at
Evian?

> We are dealing with serious political differences here. I intend to
> criticize Ellen Wood, Leo Panitch, David Harvey or whoever without fear or
> favor as the need arises. As soon as I am finished with John Holloway's
> "How to Change the World without taking Power", I will have a word or two
> to say about that.

Go Lou. That stuff sounds putrid. I'll be with you, again, at least
temporarily, again.

Cheers,
P.