[Marxism] Reminder

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

The Marxmail subscription page states the following:

"The Marxism mailing list is extremely permissive. There are a couple of
things that are frowned upon strongly. If you come to the list with the
attitude that you are a true Bolshevik, who needs to convert
'Mensheviks' to your beliefs, you will be unsubbed. Members of
self-declared vanguard parties who can adjust to the tolerant atmosphere
of the list are more than welcome, since they usually bring with them
years of Marxist study and political experience."

Let me elaborate on this in light of the exchange on Camejo, which broke
out unaccountably over a notice that Peter was speaking at CCNY. The
last time such a thing happened was when I posted a rather
uncontroversial article on China's ecological problems. (Now it turns
out that the Chinese government shares the articles concerns.)

I certainly understand that there are those whose personal political
beliefs compel them to denounce the Nader-Camejo campaign as
"bourgeois". My suggestion is to refrain from opening up a fight over
this in the future.

As moderator, I have a mission to keep the list as free as possible from
bitter fights over "split" type questions. This is not just about Nader.
A while back there was some nasty sniping at "state capitalist" members
of Marxmail who did not pass some presumptive litmus test over the Cuban
revolution. I sent mail to someone doing the sniping to lay off.

We really need to avoid these types of debates at all costs, even though
it is *necessary* to engage in them from time to time. We don't want to
sweep political differences under the rug.

But speaking as somebody who has been involved with Marxist mailing
lists on the Internet since 1994, I am pretty sensitive to the dynamics
of these sorts of fights.

I invite subscribers to really focus their analysis on areas that
require further elucidation. For example, last week the question of the
Najibullah regime in Afghanistan came up. A really valuable contribution
to the list would entail going to the library or digging through Google,
etc. to come up with some worthwhile Marxist or radical analysis.

This list is fundamentally about education. We are trying to raise the
theoretical level of our movement. It tends to degrade when it gets
embroiled in questions that involve who is more dedicated to the working
class.


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