[lbo-talk] Political Cartography

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Marvin Gandall marvgandall at rogers.com, Sat Nov 20 19:38:06 PST 2004:
>I respect Stan Goff, but the topic was not "should America go 
>communist?" nor was he defending public ownership of the means of 
>production; he wouldn't have won that debate. He was talking to a 
>university audience about Iraq and Palestine and Haiti.
<snip>
>An equally charismatic shambling working-class guy like Michael 
>Moore making the same points about US intervention in the Middle 
>East and Haiti, in the same unequivocal way, would have had the same 
>success - even after declaring himself a Kerry supporter.

There is no political context in the United States today where the 
topic is whether America should go communist or American workers 
should socialize the means of production.  If questions about 
socialism or Marxism come up at all, it would be in the context of 
discussion about the Iraq War or some such concrete topic among those 
who are already politically active one way or another (most often 
among activists you already know), engaged in concrete struggles for 
clear short-term goals (e.g., Bring the Troops Home Now).  In such a 
context, Marxists like Stan Goff would offer one genre of 
explanations, strategies, and tactics concerning the struggle in 
question; liberals like Michael Moore would offer another.
-- 
Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
* Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/>
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
* OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/>
* Calendars of Events in Columbus: 
<http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, 
<http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
* Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
* Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>