[Marxism] adios marxmail

[Josh Saxe <joshsaxe@xxxxxxxxx>]

I'm leaving the list for the time being and probably for good, the
most immediate (but not most significant) reason being Lou Paulsen's
demagogic epithets that I'm a racist, and implicitly, a fascist.  This
was my second foray into this discussion, the first time I
participated was a couple of years ago when I was wrapped up in issues
relating to my leaving Socialist Action, more basic Trotskyist issues
which to people on here I was thinking about in a crude, overly
categorical way.  Which is why I was unpopular on the list and
eventually left.  In the last couple months I reconsidered the value
of this list and tried to participate in a more mature way, but in the
last few weeks I have begun to question its value as something to put
energy into.  Because I don't think it's worth participating and
posting and reading people's responses unless you put energy into it.

To me, without application Marxism is meaningless.  People on here
_usually_ write without any reference to applying Marxism either in
the class struggle or in serious intellectual work.  These are the
only two ways Marxism can be relevant or meaningful, or even _be
itself_ in the eyes of its beholders.  These are also the only two
contexts in which any internet discussion can bear substantial fruits.
 The discussion has been fruitful here in the rare instances when
people are _grappling_ with things, but usually people bring
pre-packaged conclusions to the table and enact a sort of bizarre
ritual in which righteousness is associated with "defending" the
correct position.  I am not innocent of this myself, but the list
promotes this atmosphere, it facilitates rhetoric and posturing, not
discussion rooted in consideration of actual experience and struggle
that participants are actually involved in.

A substitute for "grappling" on here is a lazy cynicism about the
traditional left and a masked kind of social-democratic
"anti-imperialism" or "anti-racism" or "non-sectarianism" which
usually does not amount to arguments about "what is to be done" but
rather a kind of intellectual laziness, a disdain for class principle,
a verbal radicalism, a verbal openness to new ideas no matter what
their consequences as long as they don't enlist you directly in some
kind of concrete action that means lifting a finger against oppression
or stepping outside of your comfort zone.  Instead of discussing
concrete successes and failures of the fight against racism,
imperialism, and sectarianism on the ground in concrete circumstances
which list members are involved in, there exists here an abstract
discussion of how bad the traditional left is and how it shoots itself
in the foot and a subtext exalting those who are not part of it no
matter what their actual level of activity.  Almost nobody speaks to
actual organizing they are doing or the way others can avoid their
mistakes and replicate their successes in their neighborhoods,
workplaces and schools.  And this at a time of the most acute
imperialist offensive against the U.S. people and the world in my
generation's lifetime.

I used to justify my investment of time and energy into this list by
thinking of it as a kind of centre for revolutionary discussion in
spite of its failings.  In fact it is a graveyard of Marxism, in which
sometimes a twitching body can be witnessed when someone puts forward
ideas about concrete ways forward or makes reference to some activity
they may have witnessed or god knows participated in, or even a
conversation they overheard.  It's a graveyard of mainly dead
political souls playing checkers with a pallette of used and re-used
categories and constructs, looking down and laughing at the
imperfections and follies of the living - in the end, laughing
cynically at all the faults and shortcomings of their former selves.

I'm going back to the world of the living and hoping I won't wind up back here.
Josh

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