Re: Any old Irony
At 17:29 17/04/99 +0100, Jim Heartfield wrote:
>In message <3.0.2.32.19990416211611.013467b0 at pop.gn.apc.org>, Chris
>Burford <cburford at gn.apc.org> writes
>>>>I am indeed on this planet, Doug.
>>>
>
>To which I said, rudely
>
>>>With all four feet planted firmly on the ground.
>
>And Chris complained, understandably
>
>>But this suggestion above is strangely ineligant for Jim Heartfield.
>
>>Or is Jim, despite his English sounding name and English address, unable to
>>handle a little irony?
>
>But Chris, you should know that I was quoting Ironescu...
>
>'Realism ... with all four feet planted firmly on the ground'
>
>
>--
>Jim heartfield
I appreciate Jim making clear that the rules of engagement on this list, as far as we are concerned at least, do not include polemical inelegance. But I have frankly to admit a degree of ignorance of Ionescu, and not to understand the allusion.
I do not know whether he means realism in the ontological, epistemological, or pragmatic senses of the word.
So to fast track forward to the political issue behind Jim H's comment: He is trying to undermine my view that the issues in the Balkans have to be analysed in conformity with reality. He seems to base himself upon preconceived leftist assumptions.
Specifically his post was in a context in which Gunder Frank and Doug had ridiculed my suggestion that a Marshall Aid plan for the Balkans was possible and indeed probable.
I have given further evidence that it is, and said my feet are on the ground.
So what is the line of demarcation with Jim H?
I am really not sure, as I have not read all his posts, whether Jim wants his arguments to be compatible with some idea of marxism, in view of the fact that the magazine to which he contributes, has changed its name to LM from Living Marxism. But I understand him to say that the first and overwhelming duty of left-wingers in an imperialist country is to oppose their government.
Certainly that is often the case in matters of foreign policy and war. But not always.
I am surprised by the drop in volume on this list. I note on an adjacent list, Louis Proyect is asking how NATO has succeeded in portraying the Serbs as fascist. I have to wonder here whether the renewed expulsions of Albanians from Kosovo have made clear to the most dedicated anti-imperialist in NATO countries that what is happening is a qualitative challenge to normal assumptions of bourgeois democratic rights. Bourgeois democratic rights get violated all the time, but this is a situation where quantitative changes are qualitative. IMHO. It does indeed raise questions of fascism, however much that too was ridiculed initially.
It also raises questions of a degree of unity between workers/working people and their governments in imperialist countries, such that arose in 1939.
By 1939 Nazi Germany had expelled only 17,000 Jews of Polish origin. There was no instruction to kill 6 million Jews at that time. And indeed there never was. Just an accelerating practical response to a political programme that was clear some years previously in its general direction.
Now the additional point that Germany had the ability to precipitate a world war, does not exist in the case of Serbia. I agree that if Russia had defended Serbia more strongly this year, it would be right to say that NATO was the agent precipitating a world war.
(Late breaking reports of a ground campaign involving Romania, I agree are most ominous but it is not clear whether that will just be stationing troops in Romania.)
On the other hand Comecon has collapsed as an economic bloc. The momentum of history is clearly towards the incorporation of the countries of eastern Europe into the European superstate. There is no economic, realistic, future for Serbia separate from this, however wicked that may be. Just as an "independent" Kosova could not be independent of these economic realities.
I think Jim is weak on the economics of this conflict and that is one of the reasons he departs from realism into idealism.
No, I am *not* in favour of Serbia being coerced into this union.
[BTW I forget whether Marx supported the Federal or the Confederal side in the American Civil War - could someone start a new thread title if they know the answer?].
But the countries of eastern Europe are only being admitted to NATO and the European Union by degree and negotiation, because there are risks both sides.
I am against a war against Serbia as such, and only in favour of the justice of a war of intervention in support of the right to self-determination of the Kosova population.
But I say that anyone purporting to be a marxist should have a realistic analysis. I expect Jim H to have one too. Yes, I am a hard bastard about that.
Chris Burford