On Jul 12, 2006, at 2:52 PM, Eric Beck wrote:
>> [I can't read everything that goes by, but I've read enough of
>> Yoshie's writings on Iran to know that I disagree with them. And I
>> find it distressing to see a branch of MR, a publication with a
>> long history of secularism and Marxism, be used as a transmission
>> belt for apologetics for a reactionary theocratic regime. Yeah, so
>> it's sweetened with a bit of populist economics, but populist
>> economics are mostly pretty dodgy, as most Marxist economists
>> would be eager to show.]
>
> What happened to Yoshie? Politically, she's always irritated the
> hell out of me, but that was because of major philosophical
> differences. Back in the day, at least her by-the-book Leninism was
> by turns interesting, provacative, or harmless. But this Green
> Party-populist turn she's taken in the last couple years--which,
> probably not coincidentally, has been accompanied by a severe
> moralizing streak--is very creepy. Her embrace of the Iran regime,
> however "critical," gives me the shivers.... I want to spin some
> cautionary tale about how easily statist-socialist politics can
> warp into statist-reactionary politics, or about how for many on
> the left principled anti-racism, -sexism, and -imperialism is a
> disguise for/must take a backseat to anti-Americanism. But that
> would be churlish and not in my character.
I think she got Americanized - not only the greenish/populist stuff, but also the subordination of interest in domestic politics to foreign politics. If we can't get much done here, we can phantasmically project our political desires onto foreign movements and figures. It's sad, because despite some differences over the years, I've always admired her intelligence and rigor.
Doug