From: Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com> To: marxism at lists.panix.com <marxism at lists.panix.com> Date: Friday, November 12, 1999 9:39 PM Subject: Re: Answering Jose was Re: Replying to Brian was Re: Referendum DownUnder
>>Let me illustrate what I mean from u.s. politics. In the article from
>>Alex Cockburn that Lou posted the other day, Cockburn explicitly
>>expresses his "hopes of a populist coalition of left and right on basic
>>issues of liberty."
>>
>>Carrol
>
>Carrol, you really make me laugh. 9 out 10 posts to the Marxism list you
>are defending Marxist rectitude against all its enemies, including me. But
>as I scan the LBO archives each day and witness your participation, or
>non-participation to be more exact, in any debate involving Henwood's
>politics, you have never once questioned his credentials. After my last
>flame war with Doug on PEN-L, where he came puffing to James O'Connor's
>defense, you plaintively insisted that the left can build a party that
>includes both him and me.
>
>But this is guy who has written for a magazine that the British left
>generally regards as its bitter enemy. A magazine that promotes nuclear
>energy, fox-hunting, genetically modified food, and puts a left-Hegelian
>spin on slavery. (BTW, I just faxed Alex Doug's article and a Guardian
>expose of LM. I can't wait to see what he has to say in round 2.)
>Furthermore, in the LM article Doug bashed Marxism as consisting of
>"catastrophists" who believe that immiseration of the working class is a
>constant and upward trend. I haven't heard such a lame distortion of
>Marxism since I used to sell the Militant newspaper door-to-door in Ivy
>League dormitories to smart asses just like Doug. "So your newspaper is
>militant. Does that mean you are for revolution? Don't you know that Marx
>has been proven wrong. Workers have rising wages and the economy is
>expanding."
>
>So when you mix this crap with postmodernism of the sort that even most
>right-thinking postmodernists would find dated, you end up with a toxic
>mess. All of the Social Text and Rethinking Marxism types that Henwood
>identifies with today would hardly know what to make of the screwy Lacanian
>ideas he's been coming up with. At least with people like Andrew Ross and
>Stanley Aronowitz, you get a sense that they are committed to Marxism. With
>Doug you get nothing but the sense that he is committed to becoming some
>kind of postmodernist guru like Judith Butler.
>
>And as he embarks on this career, you question everybody but him. Cockburn
>might have his own problems, but he is right on one thing. Doug's world is
>circumscribed by NYC publishing parties, gossip and obscure academic books
>that will end up in the remainder bins in 6 months time.
>
>
>Louis Proyect