Re: Horowitz's views and his auto-biography

["colin s. cavell" <cscpo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In addition to the two examples you mention of Lithuania and now Moldova
as examples where citizens have voted communists back in to governmental
leadership, there are as well the victories of communists such as the
landslide election victory in 1994 of Alexander Lukashenko to the
Presidency of Belarus and the July 3, 2000 election in Mongolia where the
communist controlled Mongolian Peoples Revolutionary Party (MPRP) swept
back into power winning 72 of 76 seats in Mongolia's unicameral Parliament
ousting the free market oriented "democrats" who had taken power in 1996
under the banner of the Democratic Union from office.  And this is in a
country with 2.4 million people with a land area the size of Western
Europe.  And then there is the December 9, 2000 election of "former"
Communist Ion Iliescu who won Romania's presidential election garnering
over 70 percent of the vote in a country of 23 million people.  In
addition to these electoral victories at the helm of different states,
there are numerous other examples of communists, socialists, and allies
elected to subordinate levels of government throughout the states of the
former Soviet Union and beyond.  Thus, as many capitalist's prophets
before have predicted in vain, so too it appears that your writing off of
communism is a bit premature.

However, because I know you have great experience, I am confused by your
statements such that you posit on the one hand that the ideological
perspective of the People's Weekly World is "fundamentally elitist" while
on the other hand you chastize the PWW for being "tailist" in that it
champions organized labor and the AFL-CIO by stating that "whatever the
AFL-CIO wants, it gets, as far as that paper is concerned."  Correct me if
I am mistaken, but it would appear to me that by championing the AFL-CIO
and organized labor in the US, the PWW is appealing to the broadbased
support which organized labor commands in the US.  This certainly does not
strike me as "elitist"--indeed quite the contrary.  But perhaps you can
correct my views?

regards,

colin

_________________________________________________
On Mon, 2 Apr 2001 wmmmandel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Both. But, in practical terms, for two reasons. The People's World,
> fundamentally elitist in its underlying and possibly unconscious view
> that the people is too damn dumb to draw its own conclusions, refuses to
> think about the fact that the peoples of the former Soviet Union, except
> briefly Lithuania a few years back and now Moldova, both with
> insignificant populations on the scale of the USSR, have refused to
> elect the Communists to power after they had nearly three-quarters of a
> century to demonstrate the claimed superiority of their socialism.
> 	The second reason is that, in terms of the United States, the People's
> World is, in the terms it would have used half a century ago, tailist,
> i.e., whatever the AFL-CIO wants, it gets, as far as that paper is
> concerned. So the PW is simply an organ of the left wing of the
> Democratic Party, even though the latter would subject itself to
> exorcism before admitting that. If the People's World dropped the notion
> of Marxist socialism, it could be classed as a good paper for
> progressives.
> 							William Mandel
> "colin s. cavell" wrote:
> >
> > William,
> >
> > You write below:
> >
> > >The only left newspapers are relics of the past: the People's World
> > >(Communist) and the like, with minuscule circulations.
> >
> > Is the People's Weekly World part of your list of "relics of the past", in
> > your opinion, because it has been around as long as you or because you
> > believe communism is passe' and offers scant guidance for strategy and
> > tactics for human liberation and freedom?
> >
> > colin
> > ______________________________________________________________________________
> > Colin S. Cavell                         "Disfranchisement is the deliberate
> > Department of Political Science         theft and robbery of the only
> > Thompson Tower                          protection of poor against rich and
> > Box 37520                               black against white.  The land that
> > University of Massachusetts             disfranchises its citizens and calls
> > Amherst, MA  01003-7520                 itself a democracy lies and knows
> > Internet:  cscpo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx       it lies."
> > Voice:     (413) 546-3408
> > http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~cscpo            --W.E.B. Du  Bois
> >                                                     (1868-1963)
> > ==============================================================================
> >
> > _________________________________________________
> > On Sun, 1 Apr 2001 wmmmandel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >
> > > Of course there is dissent in the U.S.: Seattle, the massive
> > > demonstrations outside the Republican and Democratic conventions in
> > > Philadelphia and Los Angeles, the huge counter-inauguration crowds in
> > > Washington when Bush was sworn in, the burgeoning student
> > > anti-sweatshop, pro-Mumia, etc., etc., organizations at campuses where
> > > one never heard a peep formerly: Cal. Polytechnic in San Luis Obispo,
> > > James Madison in Virginia, Portland State in Oregon, just to mention
> > > places I have spoken personally in the past year. There are so many
> > > youthful dissent speakers of standing that I haven't been able to get
> > > the progressive speakers' bureau to take me on!
> > >       As to who educates our kids, I was utterly astonished, when I attended
> > > the Marxist Scholars Conference in Amherst, Mass, last year, to find a
> > > thousand in attendance. That is a larger number than one could have
> > > found at any previous time in American history, if only because higher
> > > education was reserved for the elite before World War II. Even though I
> > > attended one of the country's tiny handful of free colleges existing in
> > > the 30s, and it was in our largest city, New York, enrollment was only
> > > 3,000. Today universities in its class are ten times as large, and one
> > > finds them all over the country.
> > >       More impressive, in a way, is what I found at the American Studies
> > > convention in Detroit. More impressive because it is simply a
> > > professional society. Its stance on issues of race, including not only
> > > Blacks, but Native Americans, Latinos, etc., is downright admirable.
> > > Likewise, last year's presidents of both the American Sociological Assn.
> > > and the Amer. Historian Assn., organizations of the very highest
> > > prestige, were outright leftists.
> > >       As to newspapers, radio, and TV, there is no left-wing TV. However,
> > > public television carries things that are quite left. Last year, it ran,
> > > nationally, "KPFA On the Air," celebrating half a century of the radio
> > > station I broadcast on for 37 years, and the footage used was simply a
> > > recital of the history of dissent over that period: the Black Panthers,
> > > Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Union, the first interview of a
> > > "renegade" FBI man, the first show openly discussing homosexuality, the
> > > Free Speech Movement at the University of California, the resistance to
> > > the Vietnam War, my hearings before Joe McCarthy, later the House
> > > Un-American Activities Committee, and my challenge to Kennedy over the
> > > Cuba Missile Crisis, and finally the massive parade (7,000-10,000 by
> > > police estimate in a city of 120,000) in defense of our station in 1959.
> > >       In radio, KPFA was alone in the country in the '50s. Today it is one of
> > > a chain of five stations whose flagship program, "Democracy Now,"
> > > literally a flaming banner of dissent, is heard on a total of fifty. In
> > > addition, there are hundreds of illegal stations (stations to which the
> > > Federal Communications Commission denies licenses) broadcasting at
> > > low-wattage to serve individual cities or towns, invariably dissenters
> > > in what they present.
> > >       The only left newspapers are relics of the past: the People's World
> > > (Communist) and the like, with minuscule circulations. On the other
> > > hand, there are monthlies, old ones like The Nation and The Progressive,
> > > new ones like Z Magazine and the Utne Reader. The phenomenon of free
> > > newspapers, originating with the Berkeley Barb in the 60s, has now
> > > become national. Some of them have huge circulations and are extremely
> > > progressive, such as the Bay Guardian in San Francisco, a paper that
> > > every politician reckons with and many write letters to. It, and KPFA,
> > > share much of the credit for the fact that northern California is a
> > > stronghold of progressivism nationally.
> > >       As recently as 1994 our country was confronted with a Speaker of the
> > > House, Newt Gingrich, whose first three months were as wild a triumph
> > > for the Right as the past three have been for Bush. I do not engage in
> > > prophecy, but when the stunned people recovered its wits, Gingrich was
> > > crushed and today is out of politics. Not even Bush will touch him.
> > >       The foregoing recitation is anything but a celebration of triumph. We
> > > have a president who stole the election, with the direct assistance of
> > > the Supreme Court. We have a loyal opposition, the Democrats, utterly
> > > lacking in courage. The future might be quite bleak. But it is entirely
> > > too soon to say that with any certainty whatever and, as I have
> > > indicated, there are substantial forces feeling their way toward
> > > meaningful opposition. As often, in recent American history, leadership
> > > is coming from the most oppressed, the African-Americans, who are in a
> > > state of absolute rage over the large-scale disenfranchisement in
> > > Tennessee (Gore's own state!), Florida, and twenty other states. We
> > > shall see what we shall see, but I am not a pessimist.
> > >                               William Mandel
> > >
> > >
> > > schulte-baeuminghaus wrote:
> > > >
> > > > William,
> > >
> > > --
> > > ===================================================================
> > > Do you teach in the social sciences? Consider my SAYING NO TO POWER
> > > (Creative Arts, Berkeley, 1999), for course use. It was written as a
> > > social history of
> > > the U.S. for the past three-quarters of a century through the eyes of a
> > > participant
> > > observer in most progressive social movements (I'm 83), and of the USSR
> > > from the
> > > standpoint of a Sovietologist (five earlier books) knowing that country
> > > longer than any
> > > other in the profession. Therefore it is also a history of the Cold War.
> > > Positive reviews
> > > in The Black Scholar, American Studies in Scandinavia, San Francisco
> > > Chronicle,
> > > forthcoming in Tikkun, etc.
> > >
>
> --
> ===================================================================
> Do you teach in the social sciences? Consider my SAYING NO TO POWER
> (Creative Arts, Berkeley, 1999), for course use. It was written as a
> social history of
> the U.S. for the past three-quarters of a century through the eyes of a
> participant
> observer in most progressive social movements (I'm 83), and of the USSR
> from the
> standpoint of a Sovietologist (five earlier books) knowing that country
> longer than any
> other in the profession. Therefore it is also a history of the Cold War.
> Positive reviews
> in The Black Scholar, American Studies in Scandinavia, San Francisco
> Chronicle,
> forthcoming in Tikkun, etc.
>