Re: [Marxism] Re: Brazilians urged to take to streets

["rrubinelli" <rrubinelli@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ah Fred, if the world really was the world according to Feldman, then
the NYT would tell us all we really need to know.  We could dispense
with actually analyzing classes and class struggles, on their own terms,
at home and abroad; we would see in and between the lines the evil
conspiracies against "progressive" forces... we would have all the news
that fits.

But what about the damn dam?  And what about its impact on the
indigenous people?  What is the history of such "progressive" projects?
What are the real wages and results of bourgeois, national bourgeois,
development.  First and foremost, the results are deeper, more
comprehensive integration of the "national" economy into the world
markets, into international capitalism.

Secondly and simultaneouosly, you get the destruction of traditional
rural, subsistence economies; and destruction it is, literally.  Look at
Sucumbios in Ecuador.   Hell, look at Mexico. You get the advanced
capitalist dispossession of the population within the specific inability
of  "undeveloped" national capitalism to absorb the bulk of  that
population in urban, manufacturing employment.

Fred covers his uncritical support to (pseudo)nationalism by waving the
straw man in a bloody shirt like a flag:

"On the part of the left, failure to defend bourgeois-nationalist forces
when they come under imperialist attack can only weaken the effort to
bring together genuine popular-revolutionary movements.In fact, a
sectarian posture on this issue can facilitate devastating blows that >
can throw back the prospects for a considerable time."

Baloney.  First, behind the bourgeois-nationalist forces, stands a real
working class struggle against all of capitalism.  The bourgeois
nationalist forces are a moment in the development of that struggle; and
as such the success of the struggle will necessarily supercede,
overthrow, as it did in Russia, those bourgeois nationalist forces.
Secondly, criticizing those bourgeois nationalist forces  on a class
basis is the only way to "bring together" a "genuine
popular-revolutionary movement."  Thirdly, nobody is arguing for not
defending Brazil from imperialist attack.  On the contrary, real
concrete analysis, something that requires more than speculations about
NYT's articles, will show that Lula is precisely part of the imperialist
attack on living standards in Brazil.

But moreover, this attempt to obfuscate, to misdirect, to misidentify
class analysis as "a sectarian posture," as a "failure to defend...,"
as "facilitating devastating blows,"  is exactly that same baloney that
has been  spewed out against every class-based struggle against the
bourgeoisie and its "democracy,"-- advanced, undeveloped  and decrepit
all at once-- since 1927. In fact, of course, it is exactly the
uncritical defense of such bourgeois democracy and nationalism that has
facilitated the destruction of prospects for the revolutions.

 It ain't new news, and who the hell wants yesterday's news?  Who wants
yesterday's papers?

rr



----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "mxmail" <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "sblm" <sblm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2005 3:06 AM
Subject: [Marxism] Re: Brazilians urged to take to streets


>


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