Re: M-I: Russell Means, the RCP and Jean Baudrillard

[James Heartfield <James@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In message <3.0.3.32.19980110152546.006d3cf8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Louis
Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
>Russell Means, a leader of the Wounded Knee occupation, presented a paper
>titled "The Same Old Song." It is a challenge to dogmatic Marxism and a
>powerful one at that. He says:"But, as I've tried to point out, this 'truth' is very deceptive. Look
>beneath the surface of revolutionary Marxism and what do you find? A
>commitment to reversing the industrial system which created the need of
>white society for uranium? No. A commitment to guaranteeing the Lakota and
>other American Indian peoples real control over the land and resources they
>have left? No, not unless the industrial process is to be reversed as part
>of their doctrine. A commitment to our rights, as peoples, to maintaining
>our values and traditions? No, as long as they need the uranium within our
>land to feed the industrial system of the society, the culture of which the
>Marxists ARE STILL A PART."

>Churchill does have kind words for Jean Baudrillard's "The Mirror of
>Production." According to Churchill, Baudrillard reaches many of the same
>conclusions that he, Means and Deloria have reached.

>"Radical in its logical analysis of capital, Marxist theory nonetheless
>maintains an anthropological consensus with the options of Western
>rationalism in its definitive form acquired in eighteenth century bourgeois
>thought. Science, technique, progress, history--in these words we have an
>entire civilization that comprehends itself as producing its own
>development and takes its dialectical force toward completing humanity in
>terms of totality and happiness. Nor did Marx invent the concept of
>genesis, development and finality. He changed nothing basic: nothing
>regarding the idea of man producing himself in his infinite determination,
>and continually surpassing himself toward his own end."

This of course is the natural trajectory of contemporary indegenism
(which has nothing much to do with the actual lives of indegenous
peoples). Louis Proyect is right to say that post-modernism and
indigenism have the same outlook, because both are an expression of the
anti-enlightenment thinking. From this reactionary standpoint it is
right to say that Marxism and Capitalism share the same prejudice
towards progress and development.

Fraternally
--
James Heartfield