Re: [Marxism] Camejo to speak at CCNY

[" Ian Pace" <ian@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joaquín" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition'"
<marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2004 6:40 PM
Subject: RE: [Marxism] Camejo to speak at CCNY


>Michael Feldman writes, "This might sound pretty simple but what exactly
are
we arguing about here? Nader and Camejo are for capitalism. We are against
it. Just because Camejo WAS  a Marxist at one point doesn't mean anything.
What if David Horrowitz ran for president, would we be discussing his work
when he was a Marxist or exposing him for what he really is?"

>This is an archetypal sectarian position, once again zeroing in on
positions
rather than on analyzing things in a Marxist materialist way, of looking at
social sectors in motion.

>The Nader campaigns and the Camejo campaigns are unprecedented in living
memory, and way MORE revolutionary than all the members of all the sects
shouting in unison "down with capitalism, up with socialism."

>That because Nader and Camejo in their individual previous campaigns and in
this joint campaign have figured out how to reach millions of people with a
message that points in the direction of the independent organization of
working people as a political force.

>This message, that the two-party system is one animal with two heads that
feed from the same trough, that it is controlled by the rich and corporate
elite, and that therefore regular people, working people, need *their own*
party is precisely the *right* Marxist message.

>Marxism isn't about convincing people by preaching at them that socialism
is
necessary. That is an idealist, utopian socialist approach. Marxist activism
is about engaging working people starting from their current level of
consciousness in such a way as to push them forward on the road towards
organizing themselves as an independent political force.

>CLASS INDEPENDENCE AND SELF-ORGANIZATION, not preaching "socialism" or
"communism" at the workers, is the very heart and soul of Marxist politics.

>As for your statements that Nader and Camejo are ideological supporters of
the capitalists system, I would say: prove it.

All of this seems to come down to a basic argument: does one believe that
social democracy (which Nader and Camejo espouse) is a progressive route
towards socialism, or a means to give a longer staying power to capitalism,
by giving it a make-over?

Solidarity!
Ian



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