> I don't know what Gmail is; I once knew but now forget what (in the
> context of talking about e-mail) web interface is, and I haven't the
> slightest idea what "offline email client" means.
>
> :-)
>
> Carrol
All these yrs. on the net and you can't google?
http://search.lbo-talk.org/search/swish.cgi?query=Gmail
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20040830/019180.html
[lbo-talk] gmail giveaway
Leigh Meyers leighcmeyers at yahoo.com
Wed Sep 1 06:43:19 PDT 2004
https://gmail.google.com/?dest=http%3A%2F%2Fgmail.google.com%2Fgmail
http://www.google.com/search?q=Carrol+Cox+%22Stalinism%
http://www.google.com/search?q=offline+email+client
http://www.google.com/search?q=+web+interface
Heh, this looks fun,
http://www.etext.org/Politics/AlternativeOrange/5/v5n2_p07.html
> ...Cox's text ("Playing Word Games") calls above all for attention to
> “history” (we admit first off that the fleeting traces of concepts in
> her texts set her apart from her accomplices — but not far enough
> apart). The violent underside of Cox's distorted version of “history” is
> that those who don't get it simply need to “shut up”; they are in her
> words in “no position to... understand” even the simplest goings on in
> the world today. Cox's pseudo-"history” in short, is one of the fascist
> devices deployed by the panicky leftist for shutting up some
> “presumptuous” revolutionaries...
From owner-marxism-international Date: Sat, 5 Apr 1997 13:19:17 -0500 (EST) From: Brian M Ganter <bmganter at acsu.buffalo.edu> Subject: M-I: PANIC LEFT: TAKE THREE
PANIC LEFT: TAKE THREE
Carrol Cox's most recent text, we believe, displays with a great deal of clarity the place of the panic left and its fascist practices in “history." “History” it should be recalled is that which Cox insists cannot and will not be grasped by the “dilettantes” of Red Critique. “History” (of the academy, of the M-I list, of ideology, etc. and all of the other terms invoked ad infinitum in her short panicky narrative) is simply beyond the ken of the RMC/Buffalo, Brad Rothrock and all others in solidarity with their positions.... Although we will deal with more general issues and (yes) the history of the panic left below, we want to deal briefly first with Cox's narrative, a familiar story of the petty-bourgeois in a time of crisis: s/he reasserts the same reactionary practices under the cover of the new “reasonability” and “reinvention” of the center. One of the main moves of her text then is separating the “serious” left from the “cuckoo” left (Proyect/Dumain) in order to reconstruct the “reasonable” center.... Of course this centrist trajectory of reinvention and renewal is simultaneously being deployed by others to cover over their evident bankruptcy as radicals and theorists—“cuckoos” and “serious” alike (see below). After the earthquake of Red Critique this is the very historical “alliance” that the Coxs, the Proyects, the Henwoods and their supporters do not want to hear read back to them. Thus the rear guard of this group — Malecki — is now also attempting to “reinvent” history by his feigned amnesia ["perhaps I have missed something” he bursts out]—he, like them, caught up in the nightmare of history just wants to “go back” (renew and reinvent) and in doing so start all over again contradiction-free! We do not believe that jokes, grammar lessons, “deep thinking” or “allusions” to the “deep” left experience (those untheorizable “intensities” that have always been put forward as the source of wisdom and authenticity in the fascist imaginary) should dictate the terms of this space or for that matter what passes for historical analysis (Cox's “serious” text, Proyect's cynicism, Malecki's amnesia...). We have worked to make this space a critique-al space for sustained materialist analysis of capitalism, particularly of emerging forms of fascism (see Zavarzadeh's analysis of postmodern fascism in our last post for instance, PANIC LEFT, Pt. 2). The panicky left's implication — however marked by retreats and flutters of panic — in the reemergence of fascism in the moment of late capitalism is our focus here.
I. Allusion and the “Deep” Left Experience
Cox's text ("Playing Word Games") calls above all for attention to “history” (we admit first off that the fleeting traces of concepts in her texts set her apart from her accomplices — but not far enough apart). The violent underside of Cox's distorted version of “history” is that those who don't get it simply need to “shut up”; they are in her words in “no position to... understand” even the simplest goings on in the world today. Cox's pseudo-"history” in short, is one of the fascist devices deployed by the panicky leftist for shutting up some “presumptuous” revolutionaries. Take her rebuttal to Mr. Rothrock that one cannot even speak of “ideology” in polemics without “confronting its varied history”. How then, we want to know, can she mark Mr. Rothrock's deployment of ideology as mistaken and wrong? How can Cox after first declaring the need for more analysis before one (Rothrock) speaks at all, then proceed to announce what “ideology” is and is “not” ("Ideas are precisely what an ideology is NOT” she says)? These are not trivial details of “clarity” and “style” but are part of the alibis through which the left as a whole marginalizes critiques of its complicity with capitalism: through its intellectual emptiness it performs the rule of ignorance and defends the poverty of left philosophy at large. Cox's deployment of something she calls “history” finally then shows the complicity of the “serious” left and the “cuckoo” left. It is no surprise that Cox's violent silencing of Red Critique with ALLUSIONS, EMPTY CONCEPTS ("history") and SPECTRAL ANALYSES (which are alluded to again and again but never make an appearance) echoes that of the very “cuckoos” she calls on to clean up their act (Proyect/Dumain) — so that they can all stand tall and proud in the absolutely new and improved “center”. Cox echoes Proyect who has mocked and aggressively opposed Red Critique for several days (at least) and only now finally stops to wonder what its really all about after all! Instead of cynicisms he now writes with all seriousness “tell us exactly what you have to offer"! What has he been opposing up until now??! Cox also embraces the postepistemological strategies of Dumain/Crouch: Cox like Dumain only has to “allude” (no presentation of argument is necessary). Dumain embraces “allusion” as a form of pseudo-argument, and in doing so reifies experience (the fascist mysticism of the self-evident experience) as the authentic source of knowing. He thus only needs to ALLUDE to his definitive study in the register of the Crouch/Dumain bureaucrat “I'm not going to recapitulate the detailed study I gave to the [Alternative Orange] just for your benefit"!. Like Proyect then, Cox shuts up those she doesn't comprehend and like Dumain she points and alludes to her absent arguments and spectral analyses (ultimately her “deep experience” as a person of the left) as the justification for her fascist attacks and silencings. Why shouldn't Dumain post his “detailed study"? WHY is Cox “suddenly” running out of time and space when it comes time for analysis ("Perhaps another time” she writes). WHY NOT ANALYZE OUR CRITIQUES HERE AND NOW? What is this space for if not analysis and theorization for social change? With Cox's/Proyect's/Dumain's endless fetishization of the “deep” left “experience” this is perhaps the point to move on to...
II. The Death of Intelligence in the Left Mafia
We will turn now to the history of the panic left — a tumultuous series of reversals and shufflings that have attempted to construct some semblance of radical thinking. In doing so this left falls back on the clichés of history. The panic left has been using “Stalinism” to represent its foes as a “gang” of uniform thinkers and itself as independent thinkers who act individually, write individually,.... This use of “Stalinism” — as we have already indicated—is simply a cover up for an underlying fascism. It is mark of this fascism that the panic left on the net is now acting like a mafia: defending each other (C. Cox annotating Louis Proyect, Henwood's coming to Cox's rescue by announcing that STYLE is the lynch pin of ideological struggle... Henwood and Scott McLemee rushing to rescue what is left of Dumain/Proyect... Proyect's glee towards Andy Austin: “He's one of us!"... Dumain's defense of Henwood and Proyect and his summing it all up in the networking slogan of the new left mafia: "socialism is who you know"). The members of the “reinvented” center—the left mafia—we are finding are getting to “know” one another better and better. The primary issue that unites this mafia is its fear and loathing of intellectuals. Scott McLemee after some delay and lingering in the editor's lounge of LINGUA FRANCA finally confesses to his disgust of intelligence. He, however, like all those who get nervous around smart guys, cloaks his fear in jokes ("gas bag”... “red scientology” etc.). The joke is the last resort of the embarrassed petty bourgeois who has nothing to utter but a nervous laughter. And this is, of course, typical of the panic left (e.g. Louis Proyect's laughter on being told that he has to READ Engels... he does not get the point but laughs at the suggestion anyway... it at least covers his ignorance... ).
It is scandalous that in the last several days during which members of the mafia have all announced and re-announced their “opinions” on our text, none (not a single one) has actually ANALYZED it — not one has discussed/critiqued its ideas... all we have is “opinion” (as a device for protecting the holder of opinion from thinking) and the shield of “style” — to divert attention from dense theoretical issues to matters of rhetoric. This is the scandal of this mafia left; it is so intellectually insecure that does not know what to think of what it reads. Until her last post, Carrol Cox was convinced that TRANSFORMATION was quite a “good” thing... now she is not so sure anymore. Soon, undoubtedly Henwood will change his view on LUDIC FEMINISM, Cox will perform (as all performative leftists do) an interpretive acrobatics and change her mind about the book. This is simply what happens when the panic left becomes the last bastion of anti-intellectualism. Thus its relentless attack on the academy— which is in a sense another mark of its self-loathing and insecurity in the presence of ideas. It is a symptom of this embarrassment and the intellectual insecurity and impatience with complex thinking that Louis Proyect declares: “do the rest of us a favor and tell us exactly what you have to offer." Of course, the very same person who says HOW you say (STYLE) is the most important element in communication, now has changed his mind — he no longer cares about HOW its said—he wants to know the WHAT of it — like all petty bourgeois readers he has no time to think through things (like Cox he cannot “afford” the time — “Perhaps some other time"). He wants a “summary” — a READERS DIGEST OF THE LEFT... well, we are not writing for READERS DIGEST... for paraphrase and summaries read Scott McLemee's luminous texts in LINGUA FRANCA...
— from list marxism-international at lists.village.virginia.edu -- Michael Pugliese