[Marxism] A correction of Walter Lippmann's criticism of the Militant's present line

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is an edited version of a letter I sent to Walter Lippmann about
the discussion on the pronouncements attributed to National Secretary
Jack Barnes in the current Militant.
Fred Feldman


-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Feldman [mailto:ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 7:58 AM
To: 'wlippmann'
Subject: Debate re Militant

Let me apologize for not doing this earlier, but I think you are
literally factually in the wrong about the SWP position, but not their
fundamental position. WP did not occur to me.

Factually they clearly reassert their now decades-long position of
imminent crash and deepening economic crisis.  I too wondered if they
would change that in line with their position of the Barnes-Clark
article last year that Washington's hegemony is growing. But it is a
while since they proclaimed that  Washington is marching forward and
imperialist Western "old Europe" is helpless and "can't piss a drop."

Secondly Barnes seems to call a slight retreat from the rip-roaring "get
the resistance 'rats'" enthusiasm of the weeks since the attack on Najaf
when they claimed that Sadr and his followers had "fled" the city.  For
the first time in more than a year, Barnes asserts  that the US
imperialism cannot solve the Iraqi crisis and cannot stabilize the
country. His wording (as edited by Clark)  is cloudy as usual, but
apparently the reality has slightly intruded into the brain of the
unmoved mover. Of course, he still suggests that the occupation is
creating political space that the workers will be able  to use in this
context of imperialist vulnerability.  In fact, as always, it is the
class struggle against the imperialists that is creating the real
political space.

Of course, he EQUATES  beheadings and attacks on US installations and
troops as equal crimes committed by the resistance..   Wow!  But  he
drops the claim that resistance to the occupation must wait for the
formation of a proletarian (Barnesian) party.  Now the models are
Vietnam and Algeria.  Of course, attacks such as those the resistance
carries out on US installation and Iraqi "collaborators" such as the
police were very common there, too.
Although Barnes today, I am convinced, would have a similar position to
Shane Mage about a resistance like that in Algeria, he only insists
formally on a "revolutionary" resistance.  I suspect that means the same
thing as always,
A "Barnesian" nucleus, but I can't prove it at this point.

Secondly, he seems to signal, it seems to me, that the Militant should
stay away from the "fleeing rats" stuff -- without actually criticizing
anything, of course, for that would disturb homogeneity.  Hence the
condescending positive word for Iraqi youth who are fighting -- the
first concession that there is anything but "Saddamist" or other
criminals and demons fighting the occupation, who fully deserve to be
defeated by "their troops." See, it's not patriotic.  They didn't say
"our."

The rest is business as usual. The overall analysis represents a slight
retreat from Orthodox Rumsfeldism.

Note that the only two activities suggested are strike picket lines and
sales at plant gates.  These are the only progressive activities in the
country.

But from the standpoint of the discussion on Marxmail, his emphasis on
the importance and growing prospects for a movement of the unorganized
to be organized is correct and, of course, this would completely cut
across the  lines of  religion, Bushvoters -Kerry voters-nonvoters,
Blue states-Red states.

The gibble-gabble exaggeration of how well organized imperialism is
becoming is all there, but the dismissal of European competition with
Washington on the grounds that the Europeans are helpless, gutless,
worthless Eurowimps has been dropped in favor of citing European
competition as one of the factors pulling the US economy down.  He
specifically states -- in his usually cloudy, not quite saying nothing
way -- that European competition is a factor pulling the US  down and
that the next presidential term will end in a worse economic situation
than this one.

Of course, your broad assessment of the reactionary line is correct, but
the article you cite represents defensive modifications, not primarily
flat reassertion.

The oddest part of his presentation of his rejection of Dobbs' idea of
"transition in leadership" as a model for the SWP today, an rejection in
the attributes to the Cubans.  There is, of course, no need for the
transition in leadership since there has never been a better leadership
in history than the core leaders of the SWP -- Barnes, Clark, Waters,
who alone possess Marxist culture and can transmit it to the younger
comrades (including those in their forties and fifties) who stand, in
the nature of things,  lower in the Great Chain of  Political Being.
This is not the same thing as the days when they were obstructed and,
worst of all, sometimes disagreed with,  by the likes of Breitman,
Kerry, Lovell, and others who did not know their place in the order of
things, now firmly and homogeneously established.

Why think about transition in leadership, when the SWP has much greater
resources than yesteryear, and the possibilities of organ transplants,
bone and joint implants, plastic surgery, and cryogenics are still on
the march.  As I like to joke when anyone asks me whether I believe in
eternal life: "Well, so far, so good."

Gabosch is an apologist by political orientation, which is why no
"hostile opponent" can ever be right about anything in his view, but we
need to observe the facts of an ever-shifting defense of sectarian
existence.

Again, very sorry I did not write you as soon as I read the Militant
report.
Fred


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