Re: [Marxism] what is Antiwar.com?: Louis's comments on a Militant article

[Steve Gabosch <bebop101@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis,

Thank you for your response.  I think I now understand better what you mean
by "silly" when you refer to that Militant article, and how you determine
what is "silly" about it.  Although you don't touch on your opposition to
"vanguardism" in this post, I have read others which have.  My take on the
reasoning behind your responses in your 6/11/04 post goes something like
this:  a vanguardist (Leninist, or perhaps, Cannonist) group like the SWP
comes up with absurd or "silly" political positions because its whole
strategy for building a revolutionary vanguard party is essentially flawed.
According to your reasoning, as I understand it, a vanguardist group will be
constantly trying to bend its perceptions of outer reality around a false
set of inner assumptions.  In so doing, it can gradually drift away from
being in touch with reality as it keeps distorting its understanding of
reality to correspond to its assumptions.  It keeps distorting its
understanding of the facts in order to fit its theories.  If your theory of
vanguardism is correct, then it would stand to reason that a group like the
SWP would often arrive at wrong positions and say "silly" things about the
real world.  This Militant article about the neo-conservative conspiracy in
the Iraq war is just another instance of silly statements.

In your recent post regarding the theory of a neo-conservative conspiracy
that manipulated the Iraq war and the Militant's analysis of it - where you
demonstrate your assessment of the Militant's "silliness" - you do something
very striking.  You quite clearly - I demonstrate this below - distort the
actual meanings of sentences you quote from the Militant, and indeed, render
them "silly".  This is not new in politics, of course, even from those
identifying themselves as Marxists, but it is striking how you do this. This
post of yours provides several especially visible examples.  I selected your
responses to sentences 10, 15, 16 and 17 from the Militant article as the
most interesting.

It seems bizarre to say to a professional and accomplished Marxist writer
such as yourself, Louis, that you have blatantly distorted the meanings of
published sentences, especially knowing that you have no patience with such
methods.  But this isn't some obscure interpretation, on my part, of what
you wrote.  It is an objectively measurable linguistic procedure anyone
competent in reading English can assess.

It would surprise me if you were actually doing this on purpose, in the
sense of deliberately falsifying the words of the Militant, because I
believe you are entirely sincere in your intentions.  It seems more likely,
as I see it, that you are doing something more akin to what you seem to
suggest that "vanguardists" are often doing - trying to bend reality to
match fixed assumptions, distorting and ignoring facts to fit theories.  In
the case of the Militant article we are discussing, it seems that your
assumptions are so intransigent and overpowering that you can apparently
read some sentences out of the Militant that say and mean one thing, but
then immediately turn around and claim, without any doubt, that they say and
mean something quite different.  You apparently ignore the empirical
evidence - the factuality - of the actual published words and sentences and 
their
clear meanings, and choose instead to attribute completely different
meanings to them, perhaps in order to correspond with your theory.  In some
passages, you literally get the meanings of some sentences in the Militant
180 degrees wrong - you totally reverse the order of events as stated and
represent these passages with a meaning that is exactly the opposite of what
is actually being said.

A little close analysis reveals how you do this.

Now, I know these are very harsh and confrontational words, that you take
your writing seriously and cannot possibly be pleased by a critique such as
this, but the evidence is right there.  I would not say such things if there
was not immediate proof.  You, and any reader, can judge for yourself from
the comments below if these statements I am making have any substance to
them.  It is just a matter of reading closely and judging for oneself.  The
most interesting instances of blatant distortion are those regarding
sentences 15, 16 and 17.

_________________________________________________________
An analysis of Louis's distortions of four sentences in a Militant article

The Militant:
10.  Hersh?s ?exposé? relied in part on information from a retired Air Force
intelligence officer.

Louis:
More silliness. The Pentagon Papers were furnished by the same sort of
person. And why is expose put in quotes? However the information was
provided, it certainly had the same kind of impact as Hersh's investigation
of the My Lai massacre.

Steve:
The term ?exposé? is put in quotes because the Militant denies the claim
that a neo-conservative Jewish (or pro-Likud party) conspiracy in the
Defense Department manipulated the US into going to war in Iraq.  In
contrast, the information in the Pentagon Papers and about the My Lai
massacre was true, so there is no analogy.  If, as the Militant claims, the
neo-conservative Jewish conspiracy theory is false, then it does not follow
that it can have the "same kind" of impact that Hersh's true and
history-making investigation of the My Lai massacre did or the Pentagon
Papers did.  All these comparisons, of course, hinge on whether the
neo-conservative conspiracy theory is true or false.  The Militant claims it
is false.

So far, no evidence has been advanced in this thread on Marxmail that
demonstrates that this neo-conservative conspiracy theory is true.  The
Marxist theory of the state in general denies such conspiracy theories in
the case of modern imperialist states, including fascist states.  Consistent
with classical Marxism, the Militant claims that the capitalist US ruling
class, and not a conspiracy, made this war in Iraq happen.  No one,
including Louis, has attempted to seriously contest this traditional Marxist
claim.  Perhaps, in theory (so to speak), it is possible that the war in
Iraq is an exception to the rule - that, in this particular instance, the
recent imperialist war in Iraq did not reflect the objectives and interests
of the imperialist US ruling class - and was instead fomented by a small
conspiracy with different objectives.  But real evidence, and an adequate
explanation of how this is possible in Marxist theory, is required to back
up such a claim.

Regarding Kwiatkowski, I saw no statement by Louis that contested the
truthfulness of anything the Militant said about this retired intelligence
officer - as the source for both Hersh and Kennedy, as having given an
interview on this topic to the LaRouche publication, etc.  If there is other
evidence, beyond Kwiatkowski's stories, that demonstrates that a "neocon"
conspiracy does exist, it would be interesting and relevant to this discussion.

Next, the reader can closely examine how Louis distorts and reverses the
meanings of two (actually, three) Militant sentences.


The Militant:
>15.Related conspiracy themes are being promoted both on the ultraright
>and among layers of left-liberals, Stalinists, and other middle-class
>radicals ­ from Patrick Buchanan and his magazine, The American
>Conservative, and the Buchananite web site antiwar.com, on the right, to
>the liberal magazine The Nation in the United States and the daily
>Guardian and weekly New Statesman in the United Kingdom, on the left.
16.  This campaign finds a resonance among Jew haters and sectors of the
wealthy ruling classes in the United States and Europe and of their officer
corps whose positions and chances for advancement are threatened by the
policies being led by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to transform the
U.S. armed forces into a lighter, more mobile force to wage Washington?s
wars around the world.

Louis:
This is what I would call crowning silliness of the Monty Python league
variety. Just think about what is being said here. Stuff written in the
antiwar Guardian, The Nation and the New Statesman (where Mark Jones once
worked as a stringer) finds a "resonance" among Jew haters and the wealthy
ruling classes.

Steve:
Actually, that is not what the Militant just said.  The reader can easily
see what the Militant just said and compare it to what Louis said, which is
something quite different. The Militant did not say that the liberal or
leftist *publications* Louis listed are finding a resonance among Jew haters
and the wealthy ruling classes.  The Militant said that this *campaign* -
referring to the promotion of these conspiracy theories from both
ultra-right and left-liberal sources - is finding this resonance.  As Louis
implies, it is unlikely that liberal and leftist publications such as The
Nation are gaining much of a resonance outside of liberal and leftist
milieus.  The Militant has made no such unlikely claim.  What is being said
is that related conspiracy theories are being promoted by both the left AND
the right, and this "campaign" is gaining resonance among Jew haters,
sectors of the wealthy ruling classes, and others.  This distortion that
Louis offers the reader changes the logical meaning of the quoted sentences.
 It takes coherent statements about related conspiracy theories finding
resonance within certain groups, and distorts them into incoherent and
"silly" (a la Monty Python) statements about leftist publications finding
resonance in rightist circles.

Louis:
... finds a "resonance" among Jew haters and the wealthy ruling classes.
(Isn't "wealthy" redundant here? When my old friend Nelson Blackstock edited
the Militant, he would have circled this in blue ink.)

Steve:
It appears that the Militant is just choosing to say "wealthy ruling
classes" instead of "capitalist ruling classes."

Louis:
In other words, because some liberal or radical journalists are placing
heavy emphasis on the power of the Zionist lobby in the USA and ideologues
committed to the Likud Party within the Bush administration, the Militant
interprets this as Jew hatred?

Steve:
No, this is not what the Militant is stating.

There is, in fact, no way that an objective reading of sentences 15 and 16
or any sentences at all in that article can be read that can obtain this
conclusion.  Louis has gotten the order of events as described by the
Militant completely reversed.  This is not some esoteric question of
interpretation.  It is an empirical question of what words were written and
what any rational reading of these words would understand them to mean.
Louis does not offer a rational reading.

What the Militant is saying in 15 and 16 is that both right wing and left
wing writers are promoting a conspiracy theory that is finding some
"resonance" within a variety of social layers and groups, one of which is
Jew haters.

The Militant is not saying that liberal and radical journalists that
subscribe to this conspiracy theory are Jew haters or are expressing any
kind of Jew hatred.  The Militant is saying that growing numbers of Jew
haters are tending to subscribe to this conspiracy theory.  Louis reads a
clear sentence and turns it around 180 degrees, reversing the order of
events of who is reflecting what.  The intended meaning is thereby rendered
incoherent, and a very wrong, opposite meaning is put in its place.

Louis:
Furthermore, the articles by people like Robert Fisk and Greg Palast are not
only encouraging anti-Semitism. They are reflecting the ostensibly
reactionary sections of the officer corps who are opposed to a "more mobile
force" to wage wars around the world? This is beyond silliness, I'm afraid.

Steve:
No.  Again, Louis portrays the meaning in reverse direction and thereby
completely misrepresents the order of events portrayed in the original
words.  The Militant is not saying - in sentences 15, 16 or anywhere else -
that liberal and leftist writers are reflecting the anti-Semitic views of
Jew haters, and/or the views of certain sections of officer corps.  Saying
so would would indeed be wrong.  The Militant is saying something very
different.  The sequence of events is just the opposite.  The Militant is
saying that the writers in question, on both the left AND right, are
promoting a conspiracy theory that is finding a receptive audience within
certain groups.  It is not the writers that are reflecting the views of the
Jew haters and officer corps.  It is the Jew haters and officer corps that
are resonating with the neo-conservative conspiracy theory - that leftist
and rightist writers are promoting.  This is another example of a blatant
distortion that turns the meaning around 180 degrees.


The Militant:
17.  It also finds an echo among remnants of the Stalinist bureaucracy still
interlacing the officer corps and ?intelligence? agencies across Eastern
Europe; insecure layers of the middle classes and better-off workers
squeezed by the capitalist crisis; and Stalinist-influenced liberals and
petty-bourgeois radicals worldwide.

Louis:
In other words, the Militant is on the front lines attacking a stealthy
network consisting of a magazine funded by Paul Newman's spaghetti sauce,
Lyndon Larouche, military bigwigs hostile to Rumsfeld's innovations and the
Stalinist bureaucracy. What an amalgam.

Steve:
The meaning is twisted once again.  In 17, the Militant lists more social
layers of world society where it believes that the conspiracy theory is
finding an echo, a resonance.  The Militant is claiming that this "neocon
conspiracy" notion is, to some extent, growing in popularity among certain
social layers around the world.  The Militant is not at all suggesting, as
Louis says, that the groups and layers that Louis cites are forming a
"stealthy network", or are represented by a single magazine.  The
Militant makes a clear statement about how it thinks growing social layers
are being attracted to the neocon conspiracy theory, but Louis distorts and
changes its meaning to something entirely different.  This
distortion obscures and reverses the most essential message in the Militant
article, which is that it is the capitalist ruling class, and not
conspiracies, that working people must organize against.

___________________
Final remarks by Steve:
What makes these examples more interesting than usual is that Louis
distorted these sentences in the Militant in a somewhat systematic way.
Several times, using the same technique of reversing the originally stated
sequence of events (who reflects or resonates to what), Louis obscured the
intended meaning, and in its place, conjured up, right before our eyes, a
very different, opposite meaning.  In each case, these distortions make the
Militant appear to be "silly," incoherent, and banally wrong.  Any reader,
however, can determine for themselves, by reading the Militant itself, that
the Militant is actually saying something completely serious and coherent,
insofar as they accept Marxist ideas as serious and coherent.  Whether what
the Militant is saying in this case is wrong or right, of course, is a
matter for a reader to determine for themselves.  Personally, I find the
Militant's argument compelling.  But the reader cannot even get started on
making up their own mind if they allow themselves to be influenced or
confused by distortions of what the words and sentences actually say.  My
motivation for writing this post is to show how a reader can recognize these
kinds of distortions, and judge for themselves what the Militant actually
says by paying attention to the actual meanings of the published words, and
in this case, especially pay attention to the sequence of events and
reflections as they are actually portrayed in the writing.

I have been studying Ilyenkov's 1960 _The Dialectics of the Abstract
and Concrete in Marx's Capital_, a terrific book about the Marxist method of
ascending from the abstract to the concrete, the method of dialectical
materialism.  In addition to looking at Louis' series of distortions
linguistically and logically, as I have more or less done here, it might be
useful to look at them methodologically, in order to learn from these kinds
of errors, and understand better how Marxism can help us think, analyze, and
synthesize more clearly, more dialectically, and more concretely.  Perhaps
another time.

In solidarity,
- Steve Gabosch





__________________________________________
At 09:07 AM 6/11/2004 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
Steve Gabosch wrote:
I am also interested in which sentences Louis or anyone else finds "silly."

Okay, here you go.

5.  They divert attention from the fact that the problem facing workers and
farmers is capitalism, and that state power is in the hands of a class of
billionaire families that exploits the labor power of working people.

This is silly in the sense that it is obvious. When I was in the SWP, there
was a tendency to write bombastic SLP type formulations like this but at
least the party was involved in concrete struggles. When you write this kind
of silly, maximalist prose without any connections to the fight against the
US occupation of Iraq, you place yourself in the camp of the Spartacist
League, the SLP, etc.

10.  Hersh?s ?exposé? relied in part on information from a retired Air Force
intelligence officer.


More silliness. The Pentagon Papers were furnished by the same sort of
person. And why is expose put in quotes? However the information was
provided, it certainly had the same kind of impact as Hersh's investigation
of the My Lai massacre. Speaking of the Pentagon Papers, here's an
interesting anecdote. I used to know a woman named Lisa Potash from the SWP.
She was assigned to go pick up some documents from a guy named Daniel
Ellsburg that might have been of some interest to the party. She did go pick
them up, but forgot them on a subway car. This was before they made it to
the bourgeois press. Professional revolutionaries, indeed.

> 13.  Hersh and Kennedy?s source is Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski.
14.  After her retirement from a Pentagon intelligence job, she gave an
interview to Executive Intelligence Review a publication of the fascist
outfit headed by Lyndon LaRouche and authored several internet articles in
which she alleges a ?neocon? conspiracy in the Bush administration seeking
to ?leverage the full might of the United States to build a greater Zion.?

I guess that Jack Barnes has been reading the American Enterprise Institute
and National Review websites, where a campaign against Kwiatkowski has been
mounted.

>15.Related conspiracy themes are being promoted both on the ultraright
>and among layers of left-liberals, Stalinists, and other middle-class
>radicals ­ from Patrick Buchanan and his magazine, The American
>Conservative, and the Buchananite web site antiwar.com, on the right,to
>the liberal magazine The Nation in the United States and the daily
>Guardian and weekly New Statesman in the United Kingdom, on the left.
>
16.  This campaign finds a resonance among Jew haters and sectors of the
wealthy ruling classes in the United States and Europe and of their officer
corps whose positions and chances for advancement are threatened by the
policies being led by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to transform the
U.S. armed forces into a lighter, more mobile force to wage Washington?s
wars around the world.

This is what I would call crowning silliness of the Monty Python league
variety. Just think about what is being said here. Stuff written in the
antiwar Guardian, The Nation and the New Statesman (where Mark Jones once
worked as a stringer) finds a "resonance" among Jew haters and the wealthy
ruling classes. (Isn't "wealthy" redundant here? When my old friend Nelson
Blackstock edited the Militant, he would have circled this in blue ink.) In
other words, because some liberal or radical journalists are placing heavy
emphasis on the power of the Zionist lobby in the USA and ideologues
committed to the Likud Party within the Bush administration, the Militant
interprets this as Jew hatred? Furthermore, the articles by people like
Robert Fisk and Greg Palast are not only encouraging anti-Semitism. They are
reflecting the ostensibly reactionary sections of the officer corps who are
opposed to a "more mobile force" to wage wars around the world? This is
beyond silliness, I'm afraid.

17.  It also finds an echo among remnants of the Stalinist bureaucracy still
interlacing the officer corps and ?intelligence? agencies across Eastern
Europe; insecure layers of the middle classes and better-off workers
squeezed by the capitalist crisis; and Stalinist-influenced liberals and
petty-bourgeois radicals worldwide.

In other words, the Militant is on the front lines attacking a stealthy
network consisting of a magazine funded by Paul Newman's spaghetti sauce,
Lyndon Larouche, military bigwigs hostile to Rumsfeld's innovations and the
Stalinist bureaucracy. What an amalgam.

19.  It is related to claims of a ?cabal? promoted by Anglo-American capital
­often involving the British crown and, since the October 1917 Russian
Revolution, the Bolsheviks.

This is a reference to Larouche's nutty conspiracy theories. Can't you see
Jack pouring through the Executive Intelligence Review clucking his tongue
over the dismal state of the world. And nobody can save it except him.


--

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