Marxism
mailing list archive

Other Periods  | Other mailing lists  | Search  ]

Date:  [ Previous  | Next  ]      Thread:  [ Previous  | Next  ]      Index:  [ Author  | Date  | Thread  ]

Re: conspirational world view (was Re: [Marxism] Re: PearlHarbor,etc.--reply




----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Shannon" <Brian_Shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>

That your organization also did so may be due to its seriousness and
leaders who, although young, took a serious look at earlier practices.

And even if I say so myself, somewhat correct and original politics. ;-)

Seriously, one of the key things that helped my org and continues to help it
is precisely the least Leninist aspects of it. Comittee/Caucus autonomy, for
example, allowed even base militants quick access to trustworthy information
that eliminated credibility of any COINTELPRO style defamation campaings.
Open Factions/Tendencies, of a level not even present in most anarchist
organizations, also helped minimize power struggles, because people were
weary of conspiracies if doing factional work in the open was seen as a good
thing.

I mean, my org did some wrong things in the 70s, and even in the mid-90s we
were doing expulsions (I voted against, a poor guy tried to join the army to
pay for college), but we have never been vurnerable to disinformation

And I believe that most of us were surprised by the extent or weight of
the conspiracy, although we shouldn't have been. And it was a secret
government conspiracy.

I think we very well might be on the same page, althought in a different
paragraph on this.

My issue is that for me, the Black Panther Party is a prime example of how
awry good politics can go if it is not matched with good organization, much
like the 1970s SWP (not to be too polemical) is an example of the inverse.

Yet there is a general feel, when speaking of the BPP in the left, to blame
COINTERPRO and conspiracy for its failures. This is like saying their
success was due to ML-MZT!!!

Jeez, this seems to have been very obscure at the time and a rhetorical
description or jibe rather a living tendency. After I wrote my note, I
googled it and came up with you on this list in a short dispute on Lenin
and Radek and others. Aside from these comments, is there a more extended
note on it that you can refer us to?

Damn, the more I bring it up the more I realize a comprehensive study of
original National Bolshevism and (separately) Radek in particular. My
internet sources are as good as yours.

Maybe in five years or so, when I am degreed and have joined all you
academic intellectuals, I will get to the task. I am actually researching
the question even as we speak, but it is made the harder because my German
is a wierd combination of very bad Neu Yack Yiddish, English and Spanish...

Better, someone should do it for me, so I can continue being the least
rigorous, least intellectual of the bunch.

Plus that way my research, which is devoted to fiction, won't have to be as
comprehensive. Make my life easier someone!

Yeah, I know I evade the answer, but you already have it. My primary source
material is only slightly better than yours, and what is better, its
somewhere in my mom's house in Puerto Rico.

sks


_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism



Other Periods  | Other mailing lists  | Search  ]