In a word, Brian, wrong. Discussion of Stalinism is never an isolated issue not related to the crimes of capitalism - besides the fact that talking about things in isolation and not holistically is bad thinking in general. Your isolated analysis is the academic , unreal approach. No, we shouldn't talk about homophobia unrelated to imperialism when we talk about Cuba. Your approach is the wrong one. To the extent you attack Cuba, in the current world context, you are with the enemies of the human race, and being in the project of trying to help your queer brothers in Cuba doesn't get you off that hook.
As I just said to Justin offlist:
I object to: 1) Claiming that Stalinism involved more tyranny than market systems have in history ; 2)Failing to note that Stalinism is in significant part a product precisely of the market's wars and threats of wars on the SU from its very beginning, because the SU had to militarize itself in true self-defense, and tragically this militarization for physical survival was of course anti-democratic, and undermined the ability to build socialist democracy; of course centralized planning requires democracy, and so in thwarting democracy, the imperialists also thwarted the ability to have successful centralized planning; centralized planning must be democratic centralist planning 3) failure to emphasize that the downfall of the first efforts to build socialism , therefore, do not prove for all time that socialism and centralized planning can't work, and with the ironic twist that it was the worldhistoric viciousness of the market state power that prevented socialism from proving its viability. In other words, duh, of course the capitalists tried to prevent socialism from surviving and were glad to force it to be undemocratic, and then turn around and mendaciously accuse socialism of being inherently undemocratic. 4) Regularly, trying to make it sound like supporting the SU is endorsement or indifference to the enormous tragedy of the mass deaths, whether at the hands of Stalinists or imperialists.
Charles
[lbo-talk] Re: Hayekians and other supporters . . . etc.
BklynMagus magcomm at ix.netcom.com
Charles you always engage in this tactic and it is unworthy of you. When discussing the crimes of Stalinism, the subject is the crimes of Stalinism. You do the same thing when I bring up homophobia. You attempt to derail the the conversation by trying compare and contrast different instances of homophobia.
Playing the "which ________ perpetrated the greatest crimes" game is an academic conceit. Life is not a seminar in which each of us must continuously prepare and defend "compare and contrast" essays. Life is about being presented with problems and solving them so we can then go on to the next problem.
Crimes were committed under Stalin. Question: how do we prevent them from occurring again. Your "compare and contrast" approach is useless in daily life where people solve problems, not write papers.
You make yourself an enemy of the human race when you try to distract people from solving problems with useless academic questions.
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister