By which I do not include value judgements like Tom is nice reformist and Chris is nasty grovelling one. After all, perhaps that makes Tom a more dangerous one, if he is out there partying and open to accusations that he is encouraging people to put their faith in a social-democratic representative of capitalism called the British Home Secretary who believes in some sort of "third way".
Typically, LP has replied to my challenge without addressing the serious theoretical issues in my post about the dialectical role of bourgeois democratic rights in the world today, and about the dialectical role of the state. Typically for LP, and I am not complaining, I am criticising, he engages in an unprincipled melange of personal attack, deliberately reframing his opponent's point of view and bringing in a whole range of other issues which cannot be analysed on their merits but only on the politics of the friendship circle: Tom Kruse is a nice reformist, Chris Burford is a grovelling one.
Since LP is so arbitrary in deciding when quoting Lenin is mere jargon and when it is not, I will point out again Lenin's description of the small circle phase of development, so like marxism space. It is manifested by people who approach issues opportunistically as "either a puch on the jaw or lets have your hand" (OSFTSB). But LP has failed to demonstrate with evidence other than his one-sided assertions that there is any political difference between my position on Pinochet than that of Tom Kruse (see posts of 19th October below).
This long series of personalised ultra-leftist attacks by LP on me are of no concern to Tom Kruse so long as they do not create an atmosphere in which he himself would be accused of grovelling reformism, but logically he could as soon as LP's mood changes towards him. The Pinochet case is a turning point not just for Chile and Latin America but for the world and I am bound to wish to punish LP with his own words, when events turn out as I predicted, which he dismissed so easily.
I have pleasure in attaching my full reasoned post of 19th October, which LP dismissed as "completely idiotic". In this he asserted "You are dealing with a maverick judge in Spain, who seems to be some kind of combination of Ramsey Clark and Jim Garrison."
How wrong can you be, especially when, like LP, you always believe you are right and capable of authoritatively denouncing other posters as idiotic.
LP is now more circumspect: "The judge, for reasons that are impossible to explain, decided to do the right thing and prosecute Pinochet on their behalf."
Juan has now posted on marxism-unmoderated a report on the detention of Pinochet which gives further detail, which LP so confidently asserted on 19th October, did not exist:
"This petition was the court's answer to the extended complaint filed on October 15, 1998, by the Human Rights Secretariat of Izquierda Unida (second largest left hand political party in Spain) as Popular Accusation in the case on the crimes committed by the Argentine military juntas.
Once it was confirmed, through Amnesty International London, that Augusto Pinochet was in London and after several days of work, the writing which contained the basis for the Dictator's detention was elaborated. During this preparation period the Human Rights Secretariat of Izquierda Unida, the Salvador Allende Foundation and the Nizkor Team coordinated their work. Only Amnesty International London had knowledge of the work that was been undertaken."
Thus large social movements and economic forces are at play here however manifested through the psychology of particular individuals.
LP's left-revisionist dismissal on principle of the desirability of looking for contradictions between the bourgeoisie, and his opportunist misrepresentation of this as tailing, is quite contrary to Lenin's argument in "Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder" Section 8:
"The more powerful enemy can be vanquished only by exerting the utmost effort, and *without fail*, most thoroughly, carefully, attentively and skilfully using every, even the smallest, 'rift' among the enemies, of every antagonism of interest among the bourgeoisie of the various countries and among the various groups or types of bourgeoisie within the various countries, and also by taking advantage of every, even the smallest, opportunity of gaining a mass ally, even though this ally be temporary, vacillating, unstable, unreliable, and conditional. Those who fail to understand this, fail to understand even a particle of Marxism, or of scientific modern Socialism *in general*."
No wonder LP feels like screaming mindlessly: the implication of Lenin's argument here is that LP does not understand a particle of Marxism. And after all that hard work. It cannot be true! If he cannot sign up to this statement of Lenin's he should think carefully about the points being made and how they can be implemented before launching a further hysterical personal attack.
Chris Burford
London.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Posts of 19th October:
X-Authentication-Warning: mail.gn.apc.org: Host userl692.uk.uudial.com [193.149.75.251] claimed to be default X-Sender: cburford at pop.gn.apc.org X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.2 (32) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 08:17:05 +0100 To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com From: Chris Burford <cburford at gn.apc.org> Subject: Re: good news? Sender: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
At 05:51 PM 10/18/98 +0100, James wrote:
>The question is how [who] is meting out this
>justice. Is it a progressive step that Noriega was imprisoned by the US?
>Would it be if Saddam were seized or assassinated by NATO forces?
>Certainly most Iraqi oppositionists would applaud such a move, and the
>Panamanian intelligentsia did also. But such actions only reinforce the
>power of Western imperialism, the very force that put Pinochet into
>power.
I take the logic of your political challenge. I would reply openly that we are irreversibly into the global management of capitalism and of civil society. Global governance will emerge in all sorts of impure ways, in which we must be prepared to analyse dialectically and concretely, that on some occasions governments may take progressive positions, and reactionary on others.
Like others, I of course welcome this move, but I repeat this is nothing to do with tailing. Let us for example at the same time condemn the way the USA has attempted to block the setting up of the International Court.
Yes this is about the enforcement of bourgeois right globally. But there are contradictions in that. We should in concrete cases try to show the limitations of bourgeois right, and argue for socially accountable justice. In a way my linked post on the Nigerian fire tries to do this too.
Chris Burford
London
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com From: Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com> Subject: Re: good news? Sender: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Like others, I of course welcome this move, but I repeat this is nothing to
>do with tailing. Let us for example at the same time condemn the way the
>USA has attempted to block the setting up of the International Court.
>
>Yes this is about the enforcement of bourgeois right globally. But there
>are contradictions in that. We should in concrete cases try to show the
>limitations of bourgeois right, and argue for socially accountable justice.
>In a way my linked post on the Nigerian fire tries to do this too.
>
>Chris Burford
This is completely idiotic. The arrest of Pinochet has nothing to do with "global governance" or "third ways" or any other reformist schema that Burford would cover with Leninist-jargon wallpaper. You are dealing with a maverick judge in Spain, who seems to be some kind of combination of Ramsey Clark and Jim Garrison.