[lbo-talk] "Critical Support" (Re: Fidel)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 12/23/06, andie nachgeborenen
<andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Of course it makes no difference to Cuba. We are
> totally irrelevant. I have no illusions about that or
> any pretentions. But it makes a difference to us. And
> since we care, it matters at least to us.

People just continue living in parallel ideological universes, it
seems to me, believing what they want to believe, no matter what
anyone says.  And I don't blame postmodernists or even Heidegger for
this fact.  :->

The only thing Americans respond to is death and violence, lots and
lots and lots of death and violence, like death and violence in Iraq.
Even then, the response is weak, as it is not Americans who are doing
the dying.

On 12/23/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> On Dec 23, 2006, at 2:00 PM, andie nachgeborenen wrote in response to
> one of Yoshie's "it doesn't matter what we think" messages:
>
> > Of course it makes no difference to Cuba. We are
> > totally irrelevant. I have no illusions about that or
> > any pretentions. But it makes a difference to us. And
> > since we care, it matters at least to us.
>
> It may matter to Cubans too. For all we know, there are sympathetic
> Cubans who'd like socialism without repression someday, and looking
> to leftists in the US and elsewhere for ideas and solidarity. I do
> believe that's true of China (the lbo-talk archives get a decent
> number of hits from China, as does my radio archive). Ideas don't
> have to have "social force" behind them to be interesting or useful.

In the end, though, we have to judge ideas either by results or lack
thereof.  Jim has a point in asking: if labor leftists have such a
good idea, why have they not succeeded in taking charge of any union?
And if American leftists have such a good idea about how to go about
building socialism without repression, why have they not been able to
build it or even social democracy here?

We haven't even been able to lift a goddamn blockade against Cuba that
has been going on for decades, though just about everyone in the world
-- including people like foreign and even American corporate
executives who have no affection for Cuban socialism but don't mind
bringing tourists to Cuba, doing oil exploration in Cuba, etc. --
thinks that the blockade is ridiculous.

On 12/23/06, andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> One of the few places it matters
> what we sat about Cuba, etc., is in live
> antinterventionist movements.

There is no live anti-interventionist movement.  :-0
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>