|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
|| [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Greg Schofield
Hi Greg, looks like nobody else is interested in this thread (unless we get a reply to this) so I suggest we continue offlist. I would like to put up a web page (yet another one) exposing the emptiness of Bush's S11 thesis and the real aims of this imperialist war. If we can reach some sort of agreement maybe we can collaborate on it. I suggest we return the thread to the list when we've ironed out our diferences.
|| I find it difficult to
|| understand how you smell a party line in this as my only
|| recollection of "social fascism" being previously used was in
|| an ultra-leftists turn of the comintern when it was used to
|| describe social democracy. In the context I have used it no
|| such connection could reasonably been drawn.
OK, if you say so. I've been around Stalinists too long here so when I see social fascism and historical determinism, I get nervous. My bad, maybe.
||
|| I have been around too long to be drawn on straw man arguments,
|| especially one that reaches back into the history of fascism to
|| state some bland truisms. I in no way intended to make any
|| definitive theoretical statements on this, I merely used the
|| terms for a short hand for the use of reactionary unilateral
|| force (one in the past and one in the present) in order only to
|| draw general differences and similarities - again on the basis
|| that you first introduced the term!
I had the impression that we were saying totally diferent things about fascism, viz you repeating the old line that it's an inevitable stage of capitalism, and me saying it's a dormant disease of capitalism that is activated by a variety of agents such as socio-economic trauma regardless of the the "stage" of capitalism. This is important because if you make out fascism to be an historic inevitability on top of calling the democrats social fascists, it looks like you're going out of your way to rule out an antifascist bloc. You gotta admit what you said can be taken in that vein and needs to be clarified if it that wasn't your intent.
||
|| Moreover, you then repeat what I have been saying about
|| Clinton, differing in the assessment of its historical import -
|| I stating that it was a holding of the line, you stating that
|| it is a strengthening - may I ask where is the difference
|| except in the broad direction of the historical process. If
|| Imperialism is an ever ongoing stage then I am wrong, if it is
|| a stage in decline, as I have been arguing, then I am right -
|| holding the line against a general decline can only manifest
|| itself as a strengthening, the decline however is still present.
||
Let's say the decline looked remarkably like consolidation and expansion under Clinton, whereas it looks like a rout now. In practice, what counts for me is stopping these fascist bastards and if the dems will help, fine.
|| I am saying that imperialism as a stage of capitalist
|| development is over, that unless we gain a correct historical
|| understanding of this then we cannot make real sense of the
|| facts. Facts are not irrelevant, but by themselves they do not
|| prove things one way or another. The first point of argument is
|| conceptual, so unless you can concede that such an argument has
|| in fact been presented then indeed things can only remain circular.
||
Sorry, I missed that one. So you're saying what, all this grabbing for oil has nothing to with imperialism or - more likely - the historical circumstances are such that imperialist projects cannot succeed?
|| And before I am accused of seeking mere abstract argument for
|| the sake of it, I might point out that the political
|| repecussions of acknowledging that one stage of history has
|| passed and a new one is emerging is critically important for
|| political struggle (Lenin 1914 would be a standing example).
|| This is why I have stated several times that Bush and Co's
|| present strategy is not contigent, is not an accident and
|| especially is not just one of many potential paths the US can
|| take, whereas you seem to paint it as a short-sighted anomoly,
|| a hiccup in policy. The two views are not compatible, but you
|| have not addressed that issue, or the issue of concepts or
|| historical necessities.
I haven't addressed it because of a) time constraints b) other things needed clearing up first, like whether we would ever start talking about historical facts c) most important of all: I've presented ample proof that the Bush-Cheney strategy is fucked up and the likely cause is the bunch of Texan fascists that have carried them to power (oversimplified, but that's about what happened). You have presented no counter-evidence, yet maintain that this was so ordained, it couldn't have happened otherwise, etc. I don't see how we can go forward here.
||
|| I would not normally take such a tone, but to be accused of
|| towing some party-line is a bit of joke (especially to anyone
|| who acrtually knows me), to be accused of rehashing old
|| arguments is downright insulting as I have made a constant
|| attempt to move things into new ground, and then the cheap
|| rhetorical shot that you have been on the recieving end of
|| imperialism and I have not is purile - Comrade I suggest thet
|| niether of us have been on the recieving end
Well sorry Greg but you suggest wrong, unless you have military coups, fascist gangs out to get your ass, cops who stick a gun in your face to see how you cringe, prehistoric leftists with a death urge, etc., in your neck of the woods. My experiences just give me a different take is all I'm saying, no need to take offense.
|| I don't know your personal history and
|| it would not take much to show that perhaps you have had it far
|| worse than I - the point is that it is irrelevant as I do not
|| place myself even on the spec!
|| rtrum of suffering having known too many people that have been
|| through hell itself).
Personal history was relevant when you said: "but to be accused of towing some party-line is a bit of joke (especially to anyone who acrtually knows me)". It's always relevant because all meaning is informed by personal experience and has no absolute, abstract existence. A lot of our present disagreement will turn out to be simple misreading due to insufficient contextual data.
||
|| As for having the greeps about such terms as "historical
|| necessity" well that seems to say a lot about your own
|| theoretical education - I know the implication you seek to
|| deploy in this and it is as distatseful as it is cheap.
If you say so, again. I've wasted way too much of my life trying to talk to people whose allegiance is to their doctrine and not to the reality that's about to roll right over them, so my party-line-detector may be a bit oversensitive, QED.
||
|| Hakki if you care to re-read the previous posts and respond to
|| the main argument I will be happy to reply in a much more
|| comradelyt tone.
||
I appreciate your normally friendly tone but I don't think tone is really that important as long as we can think straight. Anyway to conclude, I'm not really interested in marxist semantics unless it's backed up by references to actual history. E.g. when I say fascism, you should have a pretty good idea what I mean now because I've supplied a shitload of historical references. And people who have accused me of bandying the term around like it was once fashionable to do have seen, I hope, why it's important to understand that the events since S11 are not the result of Dubya's dorkiness or "intelligence failures" or "bad military planning", but of a fascist agenda, which is necessarily irrational. What's going down now is not new at all, it's just 19th-century imperialism and 20th-century fascism. S11 is just a reenactment of Hitler's dictum: "The great masses of people. . .will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one."
Hakki