"Frances Bolton (PHI)" wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Dec 1998, James Farmelant wrote:
>
> > There is a certain irony concerning Richard Rorty's ignorance
> > of Marxism given his family background. Richard's father
> > James Rorty was a journalist who was a close associate
> > of Sidney Hook and he followed Hook in moving from the
> > independent Marxism of the American Workers Party to
> > later adopting Hook's anti-communism.
>
> Again, from Rorty's *Achieving Our Country*
>
> My parents were loyal fellow-travelers of the Communist Party up through
> 1932, the year after I was born...[They] broke with the party
> after realizing the extent to which it was run from Moscow, and so i did
> not get to read the Daily Worker when I was a boy. By 1935 the Worker was
> printing cartoons of my father as trained seal, catching fish thrown by
> William Randolph Hearst...As a teenager I believed every anti-Stalinist
> word that Sidney Hook and Lionel Trilling published in PArtisan
> Review--partly, perhaps, because I had been bounced on their knees as a
> baby. My mother used to tell me, with great pride, that when I was seven
> I had the honor of serving little sandwiches to the guests at a Halloween
> party that was attended both by John Dewey and Carlo Tresca, the Italian
> anarchist leader who was assassinated a few yeas later. That same party,
> I have since discovered, was attended not only by the Hooks and the
> Trillings, but by Whittaker Chambers. Chambers had just broken with the
> Communist Party and was desperately afraid of being liquidated by Stalin's
> hit men. (pp. 60-61)
Responding to several different posts here. All very disappointing coming from someone of Rorty's caliber and from someone who claimed he learned marxism on the knee of Sidney Hook. From the quotes Frances posted, I'm sure any of the professors or grad students on this list who received a paper like this would give the student a giant F and a Tung-lashing. Wasn't Whittaker Chambers the client of Richard Nixon in the Alger Hiss case? Either I can't remember or am confusing something. Angela: I agree with you on the issue of Rorty's liberalism. I think he is well intentioned enough but like most liberals, is sadly, misguided. I know the work of Rebecca Comay. She gave a talk here on W.Benjamin a few years ago that was completely unintelligible(to me at least). Nice to see she is starting to sound lucid.
The Outlaws, eh Frances? Sounds very 70'sish. Reminds of the gang "The Pharoahs" from the movie "American Graffiti" who kidnap Hubert Dreyfus and force him to rob the pinball machines at his favorite diner. Seriously, the remark, on nazis/klansmen/bikers was not ment to slander those who are into leather and motorbikes. I don't know what made me think of bikers, I guess I unconsciously associate bikers with mercenaries. Bikers are kind of cultural mercenaries I guess.
On the other hand, in my own somewhat limited experience with the Hell's Angels and others of that particular persuasion, I see little in their ideology or actions that differentiates them from the Waffen SS. A friend and former high muck-a-muck in the Boilermakers union here tells me the Angels took over the union several years ago in a long and bloody faction fight. I spent a summer working on the docks in Vancouver, where I worked with several HA's "associates". The HA's are attempting to take control of the longshoremen's union(the ILWU) in their bid to control the waterfront. Vancouver is now the largest port in N.America for the importation of hard drugs. The Hell's Angels chapter here is the wealthiest and most powerful in the world. I would estimate that they own at least 25% of the commercial real estate in the downtown core. They have considerable holdings on the VSE and have their own high-powered legal team.They even have their own PR guy. Some Hell's Angel named Rick Groenwagon or something like that has been writing letters to the editor in the local newsheets comparing the HA's to the jews and communists in Nazi Germany. He also goes on the 6'o'clock news saying things like "the Hell's Angels are a recreational motorcycle club that has never engaged in any kind of criminal activity. We are the victim of a media witch hunt. " The camera immediately flashes to the media liaison for the city police: " The Hell's Angels must be stopped! They are getting stronger by the minute! We have spent 3 million dollars on our special anti-bike gang unit and have so far busted 3 Angels for smoking hash outside the Circus Circus strip bar." There are about 50 full time Angels in B.C. Every full timer has between 10 and 50 "associates" working under him. The "associates" always take the fall in busts and never talk( a rite of passage into the Angels I would imagine.) The police can't get to the full timers and ,besides, are afraid of them ( I don't know they extent of corruption in the city police but doubt it is little different from anywhere else.) A friend of mine phoned the police and told them to stop fucken' around and go for the books. "Well sir, we're doing the best we can". Yeah,right. Out in Quebec, there has been a turf war between the "Satan's Choice" and "Grim Reapers" groups who take turns throwing bombs at each other. There have been innocent people killed and injured as well as contributing to an overall repressive atmosphere. The local press(where I get most of my information on this issue) claims that the crimes of the Hell's Angels run the gamut from rape,murder,extortion to high-level dope dealing, racketeering, embezzlement, money laundering and fraud. I don't doubt it. I don't know of anything remotely resembling scholarly literature on bike gangs but guess that there are a few Master's thesis' around.
Sam Pawlett.