I agree with Chomsky's antiStalinist and antiLeninist attitudes. I don't feel the need to balance critiques of Stalinism with critiques of imperialism any more than I need to do it the other way around. We are all pretty much on the left here, critiques of imperialism are taken as given. --jks
In a message dated Fri, 7 Jul 2000 11:00:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> writes:
<< >And the fact that stupid anticommunism is a part of the craziness
>and stupidity of American culture doesn't mean it makes sense to
>circle the wagons and defend the indefensible here or in any
>context. We have a duty to be intellectually honest and morally
>clean, which means we side with the workers against the CIA _and_
>the KGB. --jks
How about adopting Chomsky's stance here? He is a left-wing anarchist & has impeccable anti-Stalinist credentials, no? He even has anti-Leninist credentials, if that's what you want. In his works, though, he _never_ gives equal space to criticisms of American imperialism and America's official enemies; it is always clear in his works _which_ is the main target. When the Soviet Union existed, he used to put in slyly kind remarks for it here and there, not because he was siding with the KGB against Soviet workers, but because he was out to skewer American imperialists even more by showing how they compared unfavorably to the Soviets.
Nowadays, this traditional emphasis of American leftists (as exemplified by Chomsky) has become reversed, it seems to me.
Lastly, I've never heard Chomsky slinging "Stalinist," "authoritarian," etc. as common epithets to put down leftists (as is done on LBO, despite the fact that the Soviet Union is a *thing of the past*)! Leave it to the likes of Horowitz to do such a silly thing.
Yoshie
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