[Marxism] Reply to a couple of points by David Walters

[David Walters <dwalters@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lou, you miss my points completely.

The first political point, about the CP is true, what I said. By and
large, and the quote you provided shows how they hedge on this... they
don't raise, have opposed, and otherwise dismiss the notion of
self-determination. This is their right. I disagree with them. My own
view is that Black Americans are an oppressed nationality and as such
have a right to self-determination and they have to be the group that
determines how they fight back. But the biggest group of self-avowed
Marxists, the CP, doesn't. And THAT is my answer to Adam who believes
mistakenly that there is some universal truth on this question not to
mention unanimity on it. They opposed Malcolm X, opposed the demand for
self-determination and I think they are wrong...

I was being very rhetorical to what I feel are the views of a guilty
liberal poising as a Marxist. Hyperbole and rhetorical indeed, with
purpose.

OF course one listens too, takes leadership from Black Marxists (and as
a group in general) in a group or forum on the question of Black
liberation. What I don't do is take orders or have someone else make up
my mind for me. Adam wants some unnamed group of "Black Marxists" to
decided for him his view on this question. He argues that white worker
class communists can't have an opinion. Sorry, I beg to disagree. I
don't know what that method is but it has nothing to do with method of
Marxism. I don't believe your party functions this way, either. It
functions in the way your analogy to nuclear power workers works, they
initiate, lead, help define on the basis of their experience, but they
do so by *arguments*, not by fiat, and do so to convince your comrades.

I fully support, for example, the right of oppressed nationalities to
organize under their own leadership, in their own organizations to
fight for liberation without having to wait for members of the
"oppressor nationality" to join them. However, no group stands above
criticism, especially in that an oppressed nationality in context of
the US working class is a *minority*. The peculiarities of the
development of capitalism in the US dictate, especially as such
expressions of self-determination and liberation don't quite point to
territorial separation as the natural direction of Black (or other)
forms of nationalism, that groups that fight for liberation but reject
using the tactic of the united front are doomed to failure. This would
be an interesting discussion among Marxists here. But Adam wouldn't let
us do that because the question has already been decided, in his mind.

[A black nationalist organization I follow is Black Workers For Justice
(BWFJ). Its task is to organize black workers at the point of
production to address the special oppression and super-exploitation of
the Black working class, mostly in the South. But they understand that
uniting with class-wide organizations like union are essential for such
organization. This has lead them, for example, to form an active united
front with the mostly Mexican Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) in
North Carolina. BWFJ is still separately organized but it lends a hand
where they can interface the politics of immigrant labor with Black
workers, many of whom often see Latin immigrants as an enemy. I happen
to agree with BWFJ. If they rejected this point of view I'd say so and
try to convince them they are wrong. Adam wouldn't, it's beyond his
vision that dialogue among radicalizing workers across the color line
is needed and even occurs, with out rancor, without one group
subordinate to the other.]

The debate here, or, perhaps discussion, Lou, is among *Marxists*. I
don't go around prying open the anonymity of the Internet to find out
some ones national background. Adam makes the assumption no one is
Black here. Wonder how he knows this?

When Nestor from Argentina states something about Argentina, everyone
usually nods in respect, he's there after all, he is an expert, but
does that mean we have to *agree* with him? Of course not. If I think
he's a horse's ass about something in Argentina, I'll tell him (and
hopefully prove it :), and he'll respond. I've never heard him say
"your not Argentinean, you *can't* know what your are talking about!"

The sort of catering to this form of identity politics is something
that rears its ugly head now and again. It's happened here in the past.
I've seen it in the Central American Solidarity movement in the 80's.
It's a form of race baiting. I won't be baited. I will discuss
politics, which is what his forum is about.

David Walters


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