[Marxism] Reply to Steve Gabosch: (was: assisting the work of the police)

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Don't worry, Lou.  Unless Bush cancels the elections, this will be my
last contribution for today.)

I assume from the changed axis of his post that Steve no longer charges
Louis Proyect with "assisting the work of the police."

He can examine the context of the discussion in which Louis cracked his
joke by using Han's Ehrbar's excellent weekly file of back discussions
on the list.I use it often, but not often enough, to check quotes and so
forth.

I personally hope that list members, including Louis, do not get drawn
into debating Steve's latest article.  From the standpoint of real
politics, his contribution is, as they say on Seinfeld, "about nothing"
and can only lead to useless acrimony.

Steve has a perfect right to agree with the SWP on anything he wants and
to be neutral, as he says, on anything he wants. The SWP is, of course,
part of the broad labor and socialist movement.  Not only does it
publish and distribute a lot of valuable material, its members have
shown some capacity to lead labor battles on a small scale (what other
scale is possible right now, of course).  And frankly, I don't condemn

 One point I want to make clear: my views of the SWP organizationally
were not formed as a "hostile opponent" but as a quite devoted member.
Although I attempted to enforce a "disciplined" state of denial on
myself, I was repeatedly chilled by the changes I was seeing.  And I can
see that matters have grown worse, not better since I left -- editorials
proclaiming that everyone must "internalize" their views on Iraq, or
proclamations that "Marxist culture" in the world is restricted to the
SWP and its cothinkers -- can only come from a certain kind of internal
life.  That is a scientific fact, but I don't require that Steve --
whose direct experience with the SWP ended long before mine -- agree
with it.

I had hopes when I first found myself outside the organization that
changing conditions would turn the SWP around, but things have shifted a
bit in our favor (the resistance to occupation in Iraq, the Venezuelan
revolutionary process, the antiwar movement, and so on) but the SWP has
responded by circling the wagons to guard its homogeneity against these
attacks by the outside world.

I don't condemn people who are still loyal to the SWP. In the current
situation, a lot of fighters hang tight  to what is still out there.  I
know the kind of profound moral pressures that kept me in line from the
early '80s till 1999 and a bit beyond..  And I know the kind of deep
societal pressures that produce these kinds of responses in the
oppressed and exploited.  That's why I don't join John O'Brien in
treating believers in fundamentalist Christianity or Junaid Alam in
treating workers who support the war as enemies.

And my experience in the SWP is also  a reason why I will never be a
harsh critic of George Orwell.  The man was no genius, but he was
definitely on to something about the class and human situation in the
world we live in.
Fred Feldman
_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism