[Fwd: NYTimes attacks ASA meeting (fwd)]

Peter K. peterk at enteract.com
Tue Aug 22 20:28:17 PDT 2000


Carrol quotes/forwards Steve Rosenthal: [clip]
>Why does the Times bother to attack what we know is a small number
>of Marxists in the American Sociological Association? I think an
>analogy with Edgar Allen Poe's "The Telltale Heart" might help us
>answer this question. In that famous short story, the killer is
>haunted by the sound of the still beating heart of the person he
>has murdered. The bourgeoisie, which celebrates the death of
>Marxism and the triumph of globalized capitalism, is haunted by a
>fear that the heart of Marxism is still throbbing in its coffin, and
>that it might be resurrected. This fear drives them to hysterically
>attack any symptom that Marxism remains alive.

[I think this is really well-put, except the foregrounding of Marxism - Peter]


>After all, the bourgeoisie knows some of what we know: That half of
>the world's people are attempting to survive on less than two dollars
>a day, that their racist cops and criminal justice system have
>imprisoned over two million people in the U.S., that they have
>carried out a massive attack on the working class during the past
>quarter century. If I had done those things, I too would be
>frightened by any sign that Marxism, the science of working class
>revolution, was alive in sociology or anywhere else.

[again, "Marxism, the science of working class revolution" is a little off-putting and probably offends both anarchists and complacent-reformist types]


>Let us not be in any way defensive in response to this attack. As
>Marxists, we should understand that it is a good thing to be attacked
>by the ruling class' "paper of record." It shows that our analyses
>have drawn blood.

[here, here. - Peter]


>If anyone would like to read the short speech I gave to open the
>session on globalization, it is on my web page at:
>
>http://users.exis.net/~smrose/ASAspeech.htm
>
>Steve Rosenthal
>



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