Patronizing Misrepresentation (was Re: [Marxism] Peter Camejo on the crisis in the Green Party

["Carlos A. Rivera" <cerejota@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Louis Proyect" <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>

> Marxmail was created as an alternative to screaming "We are Reds, We are
> Here!".

Are you sure? I thought it was:

"The Marxism list is a worldwide moderated forum for activists and scholars
in the Marxist tradition who favor a non-sectarian and non-dogmatic
approach. It puts a premium on independent thought and rigorous but civil
debate."

I have shown that your position is not only dogmatic, as it was formulated
verbatim by Norman Thomas decades ago, and have shown you to be a sectarian
in that you allow no criticism, in fact, refuse to engage in the substance
of the criticism of the Green Party, the Camejo/Nader leadership and the
marxist orientation towards it. Say what you will about me, but I am an
independent thinker. And I must say with sadness, you have been less than
rigorous, but quite civil, in this debate.

So as a matter of fact, even you, as moderator of the list, fail to own up
to your own writen and pre-established criteria, while I meet it with flying
colors, even if I say so myself.

Of course, as we have seen plenty of times before, you are not above moving
the goal posts when it suits you. I could only wish you would do the same to
the Cobbites.

> After reading your posts on the Greens, I am beginning to feel a bit like
> Huey.

Why?

As a matter of fact, you continue to evade the whole debate I try to raise.
I am either not explaining myself correctly, or you are being disingenious,
but I have re-read the questions I raise in my attempts at debating this,
and for the lights of me I can't find a single part in which I talk about
"revolution" as an immidiate task.

The funny thing is you celebrate Stan Goff for carrying in practice what
you are decrying in theory.

My formulation of "We are Reds, We are Here!" is less witty, yet exactlly
the same politically as Goff's "red as a babbon's ass". It is not a call for
ultra-leftism, but it is a call to cut thru the self-impossed ghetto of
political ignomity we subject ourselves to. It is is identity politics for
reds, if you will. Our contributions, when valued and admired, must be
claimed as our own when ever we can. It doesn't mean that our political
program must be crimson red. I have no use for SpongeBobAvakianism. But I
don't have any use for liquidation of marxism in the name of marxism either.

I do talk about political problems, grounded in the now, regarding Camejo's
approach towards the Green Party fifth column, and towards the orientation
reds within the Green Party must be discussing. In 3 or 4 emails, you have
ignored all of these things grounded in the now and here, to launch
apolitical personal attacks, the bulk of which are grounded in claiming,
falsely, that they are not grounded in the here and now.

C'mon! I know you can do better!

Now, your repeated inability to either engage on a debate of the ideas
raised, or even answer the questions I make (questions which are not
rhetorical) exhibit either a patronizing attitude or simply that you still
have the same sectarian outlook, with the same fully worked out positions
(script, as someone correctly called it), only the Party has switched. One
day it was the SWP, now it is the Greens, but it is still the same sectarian
inability to engage in serious discussion of criticism. I don't claim I am
correct, but I do demand that if I am not I be be convinced I am not, not
simply told I am not with a pat in the back.

I know you love to dish out criticism left and right, but learn to take
some, and then engage it with relative seriousness and absolute respect (and
I mean this not in language or "tone" as I share your disdain for "tone" as
an evasive technique, but a basic respect and honesty towards ideas). Your
disrespect for the ideas I raise is clear.

In other words, stop misrepresenting the ideas, criticisms, and questions I
raise.

Rather, engage them. Or be guilty in practice of the same close-minded
sectarianism you so much like to decry in others.

sks



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