Re: Beyond Pussyfooting: a story to end all stories ?

[Jurriaan Bendien <bendien@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> We need a philosopher to invent some adequate concept for the
> below...somehow, "fetishism" doesn't quite cover it.  Perhaps, it is
> just that academics are finally getting around to prostituting entities
> more appropriate to prostitution. Who knows. I become nostalgic for
> those days when we worried about how many angels we could fit on the
> head of a pin.

Fair comment. I had a chat once to this military guy in New Zealand, in a
bar, and asked him a question. He considered the question was valid, but
objected to me asking it, or at any rate wouldn't answer it. I asked him
why. He replied, "there is a time and a place to talk about these things".
So I said "how was I to know ? What is the best time - after I'm dead ?". He
replied, "You ought to know, and I'm having a beer".

On the latest point of controversy in French politics, compare
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/12/international/europe/12FRAN.html
and http://www.icl-fi.org/SPARTACI/immig-57.htm . The bourgeoisie want to
focus on lifting the veil while mystifying the position of immigrant women,
and the Spartacists will defend the veil on the bayonets of the Red Army.

A feminist girlfriend of mine in 1990 told me that prior to the invasion of
Poland, the Luftwaffe airdropped pornographic literature on the unsuspecting
Poles (if I remember correctly, she'd written an article mentioning that -
but I don't have the evidence handy here). I don't know if you remember what
the German army accomplished in Poland during the second world war, most
people would probably prefer to forget, but in retrospect the total picture
of human destruction made erotic diversions of any kind totally irrelevant
and frivolous. The most basic principle determining politics in the
relationship between social classes is "divide and rule", and then of course
we can make the astonishing discovery that you could also say "rule and
divide". The working classes are always faced with this problem, of
selecting those themes which can actually unite them, while dividing the
opposition. But this must occur on a principled basis, and not through
rotten compromises or subterfuges. It requires theoretical consistency,
imagination, and an effective organisational form which allows this to
happen; it takes the combined efforts of many, since no wise philosopher can
have all the answers. If somebody objects to the term "working classes",
they ought to take a good look at the socio-economic background of soldiers
in the occupying forces in Iraq. The bourgeois like to think about the money
and spiritual values. The workers die in the theatre of war. One could of
course say, "why let your heart bleed on account of imperialist intervention
in Iraq ?". But chickens come home to roost, and wars fought abroad
inexorably rebound on the aggressor country. The "civilising mission" of
imperialism is a fraud, because the civilisation doesn't exist at home.

Regards

Jurriaan