Thanks for the response. A couple of questions follow.
>I will be interested how Louis Proyect, who is on record with a statement
>of respect for Tom's personal and political integrity, could comment on
>this and the other points Tom makes practically and dialectically in this
>reply to Jim Heartfield, while at the same time sneering in a personalised
>and uncomradely way at the positions I have argued.
Just for the record, am I or LP the sneerer here?
>LP is on record as
>having dismissed these events as the product of a maverick Spanish judge,
>and did not see the more powerful underlying dynamic, which is merely
>expressed through individual actors.
I'm still not sure what the "more powerful underlying dynamic" is here. If your suggestion is that the Pinochet business can be explained as the product of clashes between factions of "sections of the bourgeois", I have two issues to bring up. First, empirically what are these "sections" and why do they want Pinochet in jail (or not)? And second, there seems to be a suggestion that people's struggles for justice are inconsequential, and all this is just powerful folks having at each other. (The latter may of course be true, but I hope not.)
>Concretely now the next most important decision on Pinochet will be taken
>by Jack Straw in whom Tom Kruse has promoted reformist illusions, by
>encouraging us all to contact him (so LP if he were consistent, would have
>to argue.)
I'd like to quote from one of my missives yesterday:
"Thank you to all of you who took the time to zap off notes to people and agencies in the decision making process. Who knows if it makes a differece; regardless, the gesture is appreciated."
No illusions here. If on the other hand you were just using my missive to kick at Lou, please quit. Surely you can some up with your stuff to have at him.
>The decision of three British law lords to two in a stuffy reactionary
>chamber of the oldest imperialist power in the world, is literally a
>defining moment in world history. This is a time when the phrase is no mere
>cliche. The commentators are not wrong in this. Every individual who might
>be accused of being a dicator, and of crimes against humanity, whether they
>are Pinochet, Castro, the leaders of the Communist Party of China, or
>Clinton for bombing a pharmaceutical factory, may potentially be held to
>account for violations of bourgeois democratic rights internationally. The
>full highly contradictory implications of this battle will take long to
>work out but they strengthen the role of an international court, which the
>US is so keen to restrict. In the immediate context, this precarious
>decision is a triumph for the people of Chile and the people of the world.
Agreed.
>I urge all subscribers with an interest in the implications of the Pinochet
>case to turn to Engels's letter to C. Schmidt 27 October 1890:
[snip]
Regarding the quote from Fred: Okey-doke. You should also check out recent scholarship in the antrhopology of law. Kinda winds up saying the same thing about topsy-turvy relations between law and the economy, but with copious case material (see History and Power in the Study of Law, Starr and Collierf eds.).
I'm off to a celebration today, again, of yesterday's decision. Happy thanksgiving!
Tom
Tom Kruse Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-4) 248242 Email: tkruse at albatros.cnb.net