At 7:35 PM +0800 2/8/03, Grant Lee wrote:
>I tend to agree with Justin. I mean I think "historical materialist"
>is a more precise term. Or "Marxian"... although that sounds a bit
>sci-fi these days.
Here goes the revised attempt at taking stock of the disappearance of Marxists and Marxism from LBO-talk. For the purpose of this thread, I employ the terms Marxism and historical materialism in the sense that Justin makes a distinction between them.
(A) Marxists (who think that Marxism is a useful social theory that is or ought to become politically relevant) still on LBO-talk:
Todd Archer (still here?), Jenny Brown (missed an opportunity to meet her, alas), Joanna Bujes (darling!), Carrol Cox (regular poster), James Farmelant (my favorite behaviorist), Alexandre Fenelon, Yoshie Furuhashi (regular poster), Miles Jackson (my kind of Marxist, as in a post-Foucauldian Marxist?), Joshua (with his very first post yesterday), Alex Lantsberg, John Mage (pops up once in a week, maybe), Lou Paulsen (until he gets fed up), Mark Pavlick (mostly lurking), Michael Perelman (more on PEN-l than LBO-talk, obviously), Stephen Philion (making a do-or-die effort to finish his dissertation), Marta Russell (busy), Albert Sonntag (managed to post twice so far)
(B) Historical Materialists (who think that Marxism is just a useful social theory, which is no longer and never will be again a politically relevant movement) still on LBO-talk:
Chris Brooke, Christian Gregory, James Heartfield, Chris Kromm, Grant Lee, Sergio Lopez, Dennis R. Redmond, Justin Schwartz (regular poster)
(A') + (B')
Marxists and Historical Materialists Who Have Vanished from LBO-talk (they either left or became just lurkers or got expelled):
Rakesh Bhandari (dissertation?), Patrick Bond (still here?), Charles Brown (retired to Marxmail), Bill Cochrane, Jim Devine (retired to PEN-l), Mat Forstater (retired to PEN-l), Michael Hoover (bored), Charles Januzzi (expelled), Mark Jones (expelled), Andrew Kilman, Ken Lawrence, Brad Mayer (still here?), Michael McIntyre (saw him on Soli), James O'Conner (still here?), Sabri Oncu (retired to PEN-l & Marxmail), Sam Pawlett (retired to Marxmail), Louis Proyect (pissed off), Rob Schaap, David Schanoes (expelled), Johannes Schneider (retired to Marxmail & Soc Reg), Mac Stainsby (retired to LI, RG, & SR), Michael Yates, etc.
(C) Martyr Alec Ramsdell (R.I.P.)
(D) Connoisseur of Camp (including but not limited to Marxist Camp) Doug Henwood
(D) Blogheads d-squared NEWMAN! Max Sawicky
Some in (A) might actually wish to be in (B), and vice versa, however. In any case, there are hardly any Marxist voices left in LBO-talk discourse.
At 10:06 AM -0500 2/8/03, Chip Berlet wrote:
>Maybe we need a checklist
>
>yes/no Holly Sklar
>yes/no G. William Domhoff
>yes/no C. Wright Mills
>yes/no Marx
>yes/no Doug Henwood
>yes/no Lenin
>yes/no Stalin
>yes/no Pol Pot
Here's my incomplete checklist, with no trick, unlike Chip's:
Topical yes/no Hiroshima & Nagasaki yes/no the Korean War yes/no the Vietnam War yes/no Covert Actions in support of Mujahideen in Afghanistan yes/no the Invasion of Panama ("Operation Just Cause") yes/no Sanctions on Iraq (before the first Gulf War) yes/no Sanctions on Iraq (after the first Gulf War) yes/no Somalia ("Operation Restore Hope") yes/no Haiti ("Operation Uphold Democracy") yes/no Sanctions on Yugoslavia yes/no NATO Bombings of Yugoslavia yes/no Tribunals re: Yugoslavia and Rwanda yes/no Plan Colombia yes/no the War on Afghanistan ("Enduring Freedom") yes/no Operation in the Philippines (I don't know if it has a name) yes/no the War on Iraq (coming soon) yes/no Something against North Korea (after Iraq) yes/no Something against Chavez & Bolivarians (continuing haphazardly) yes/no Something against Iran (after Iraq and North Korea, maybe)
General yes/no Military Aid to Foreign Governments/Non-Governmental Forces yes/no Foreign Aid in general yes/no Overthrow of Elected Foreign Governments yes/no Overthrow of Unelected Foreign Governments yes/no Assassination of Foreign Leaders (elected) yes/no Assassination of Foreign Leaders (unelected) yes/no Assassination of Terrorist Suspects (foreigners only) yes/no Assassination of Terrorist Suspects (including US citizens) yes/no Indefinite Detention of Terrorist Suspects (foreigners only) yes/no Indefinite Detention of Terrorist Suspects (including US citizens) yes/no US Troops, Military Bases, Etc. Overseas yes/no Nukes in the USA yes/no A Standing Army in the USA (volunteer) yes/no A Standing Army in the USA (draft) yes/no A Standing Army in the USA (the Coast Guard only) yes/no IMF yes/no WB yes/no WTO yes/no Capitalism
At 6:57 PM +0000 2/8/03, Carl Remick wrote:
>explain these world-historical events
Listservs are fit for banter, info exchange, networking, etc., not for world-historical explanations of world-historical events.
At 1:39 PM -0800 2/8/03, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>I would say with all humility that if there is no hope, one
>alternative would be to die with honor, killing enemy soldiers and
>adult male settlers but not children, old people, fellow Arabs and
>Palestinians, and other random victims.
Eminently sensible political advice, but it will not travel to Palestine in the age of Vanishing Marxism:
***** Hussein al-Tawil is a member of the People's Party, formerly the Communist Party, in the West Bank. His son Dia blew himself up in Jerusalem, in March 2001, on a Hamas mission. Amira Hass, an Israeli journalist for Ha'aretz who has intimate knowledge of life in the occupied territories, talked to friends of the father, former Communists, and some of the son's friends, who are members of the Hamas group at Beir-Zeit University. The two groups of friends don't mix. The father's friends claim that Dia was "brainwashed" by Hamas, causing great pain to a father who loved him and did what he could to send his son to the university to study engineering. For Dia's friends from Hamas, who chanted at his funeral, on the other hand, he is a heroic martyr to the Islamic cause.
<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15979> *****
With Marxism as a political movement moribund, we have no ability to offer substantial material support to Palestinians to make our ideas more attractive than Hamas's, other Islamists', and even Saddam Hussein's. "[F]amilies of shuhada receive substantial financial rewards, mainly from Gulf countries and especially from Saudi Arabia, but also from a special fund created by Saddam Hussein" (@ <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15979>). You can't eat a social theory, even a pretty good one. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>