Carl Remick wrote:
> [clip]
> Hmm, I thought Marxism was the "ruthless criticism of all that exists." How
> do you define "all"?
>
"All" means the basic structure of society in this case, the historically determinate social relations which constitute us and which we need to transform/throw off. Marx was contrasting such criticism to the writing of recipes for the cook shops of the future -- i.e., two kinds of theoretical work. It does not mean merely finding people to blame for all our troubles. It's easy to sneer at suv-owners, academics, bush-voters, or mythical categories such as "baby boomers" but it hardly contributes to the ruthless criticism marx called for.
Nor does it mean drawing up endless lists of the evils of capitalism or of specific capitalists or capitalist politicians. That iw a given, from which we depart, not the object of ur criticism. (Several marxist lists have degenerated to little more than this sort of carping.)
Anthony Tothe wrote:
>
>
> How many blacks are on this list? I would guess not many...the same is true
> for the znet forums as far as I can tell. I have no clue as to the reasons
> for this but it is a problem.-Tony
>
It is not just "a problem" -- it is _the_ problem faced in any attempt to build a coherent left from the rather large number of scattered individuals with left intentions. The left of the '60s _grew_ from black struggles, and much of the leadership, local, regional, and national, of predominantly white grous had themseelves first entered politics through participation in the black-led civil rights movement. Whether we will be that lucky again is unpredictable.
Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> David Schanoes wrote:
>
> >The question is not what exists at the current moment, the question is what
> >is to be done?
> >
> >The answer is obviously the creation of that coordinated, systematic,
> >international resistance to the war and the causes of the war.
> >
> >It's that simple and that difficult.
>
> And how do you get from pronouncement to fact? It's not like god
> saying "Let there be light" and there was light.
That's a matter for continuing discussion -- a discussion that is not forwarded by asking vacuous questions anymore than it is forwarded by wholly unanchored sweeping statements. The advantage of the latter, however, is that they sometimes lead to further discussion while the questions are merely a way of shutting everyone up.
David Schanoes wrote:
>
>
> And I got arguments about
> generational failure, "baby boomers," whether anarchists are diverse enough
> to qualify for, what?,
I doubt it's useful debating anarchists (as I've developed in detail in earlier posts): Lenin had it right when he observed that anarchism was the penalty the working class paid for its sins of opportunism. But behind Yoshie's discussion of diversity is an absolutely central concern. One of the organizing principles of working-class struggle in the u.s. has to be a rallying of the class around the oppression and exploitation of blacks. White workers who won't fight against racism (both in the larger society and in their own ranks) are on the whole unfit for any higher struggle.
> whether or not there is a movement sufficiently
> developed to oppose US policies,obviously not, but so what?,
Develop that. I don't mind the kind of posts you write _as long as at some point you slow down to develop some of your points_. I would say that the question of "whether or not" is of some importance. You say "obviously not," but that won't quite do. Before he asked "What is to be done" Lenin asked "Where to begin?" (There's not much resemblance between the Russian movement of 1902 and the movement in the U.S. now, so the concrete elements of WITBD don't have much to tell us -- but the spirit and drive of the work have a lot to tell us.)
I don't like Doug's vacuous questions -- but you set your self up for one. Slow down a bit.
>
> I don't think it's easy to change anything. I just think it's necessary,
> and necessary to begin the process at the ground level.
Really -- slow down. We begin the process where we are now -- and as always where we are not is in the middle of things. (The world is not building, and "ground level" is not a useful political metaphor.)
> That would preclude
> discussions of baby boomers, enlightened generals. and other bourgeois
> beacons of hope.
Agreed, but let's let it drop.
> That means, at the start, jettisoning all analyses that
> don't focus on class, and class as the revolutionary agent.
But that is ALWAYS the question: What, under given historical conditions, does focusing on class _mean_. My assumption is that in the United States focusing on class means focusing on the struggle against working-class racism, which means uniting those parts of the class (white or black, male or female) who will struggle under that banner.
Since a few more paragraphs of a 10,000 page discussion won't advance it a lot further, I'll stop here.
Carrol
Where does the self-criticism come in? It doesn't until there is an organized political framework within which the self-criticism is other than academic gabbling. Self-criticism is by definition grounded in political unity. We are trying to establish the bare grounds of political unity, and it is dishonest to disguise polemics as "self-criticism" or "criticism of all that exists."