converts to the left

Rosser Jr, John Barkley rosserjb at jmu.edu
Fri Sep 25 10:41:56 PDT 1998


Carrol,

Tsk tsk. I thought NSA meant "never say anything." But would Adolpho approve? Barkley Rosser On Thu, 24 Sep 1998 17:43:58 -0500 Carrol Cox <cbcox at mail.ilstu.edu> wrote:


> I was culturally conservative and voted the straight Democratic Ticket
> from 1952 through 1964. And when I first read *Capital* it delighted me
> as a book but had absolutely no political impact on me, except to
> speculate that perhaps a return to feudalism would become necessary. I
> moved gradually left in response to the black struggle and vn through
> 1966, but still (without knowing a fucking thing about it) dismissed
> marxism as defunct. (Oh yes, when I taught "A Modest Proposal" in
> freshman comp at U of Mich, I essentially taught it as anti-communist
> --communism being defined as foolish utopianism). And I think it was in
> 58 or 59 when I and 3 other (male) grad students spent over 3 hours in a
> bar in Ypsilanti arguing with a female grad student in defense of the
> cold war. (She, quite sensibly, wanted to know what the hell the
> russians would *want* to "occupy the U.S. for.) And, of course, I was in
> the Air Force 1951-55, attached to the National Security Agency.
>
> Any how by 1967 I had decided that probably when I found out what
> marxism was that would me, and I spent the following years working my
> way into a marxist position (while my career but not my job went by-by,
> since I had achieved tenure just before things got heavy). Incidentally,
> left but not marxist is a pretty empty category. I know leftists who
> refuse to *call* themselves marxist, but they might as well, for they
> are, labels or no labels. Ezra Pound to Marx and Lenin and Luxemburg and
> Mao and .... I guess that counts as right to left.
>
> Carrol
>
> (I'm assuming that after 43 years the statute of limitations or
> something like that make it safe to mention NSA.)
>

-- Rosser Jr, John Barkley rosserjb at jmu.edu



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