--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> On Jul 15, 2007, at 6:19 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > On 7/15/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Jul 14, 2007, at 11:10 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> The multinational empire is appealing, and
> social liberals of all
> >>> nations find it irresistible -- hence its
> hegemony. If it weren't
> >>> appealing, it wouldn't be so powerful, would it?
> >>>
> >>> Marx's diagnosis was correct, but Marx's
> prescription ("face with
> >>> sober senses his real conditions of life, and
> his relations with his
> >>> kind") was based on wishful thinking.
> >>
> >> What's wrong with wishful thinking?
> >
> > Because this one won't come true
>
> What one exactly? There probably was a time when no
> one in the U.S.
> could imagine an end to anti-miscegenation laws.
> Your selective
> fatalism is curious. Islamism is very unlikely ever
> to defeat
> imperialism - why is that not a hopeless case?
>
> > and it's contrary to Marx's own
> > better insight, too. You do not escape commodity
> fetishism in the
> > world of capitalism, so you never face with sober
> senses your real
> > conditions of life, and your real relations with
> your kind. Taking
> > this insight seriously means that people,
> including those who are
> > here, will fight their struggle in and through
> commodity fetishism,
> > ideology, not after having directly confronted and
> comprehended real
> > conditions of life and real relations with one
> another.
>
> No kidding. No one can comprehend anything directly
> - it's always
> going to be filtered through social and personal
> experience.
>
> >> are you lamenting this state of affairs, like
> some freshly hatched
> >> neocon who's just been "mugged by reality," or
> are you
> >> embracing it?
> >
> > "Men make their own history, but they do not make
> it as they please;
> > they do not make it under self-selected
> circumstances, but under
> > circumstances existing already, given and
> transmitted from the past."
> > Then, the task is first to take stock of the
> existing circumstances,
> > transmitted from the past, under which we are
> making history.
>
> Again, no kidding.
>
> >> Does the fight against U.S. imperialism so
> dominate
> >> all other concerns for you that you'll cheerlead
> - from
> >> the prosperous safety of Columbus, Ohio - for
> forces
> >> that would like to cover you from head to toe
> because
> >> the exposure of your mere forearm would be an
> >> intolerable provocation?
> >
> > It's an obligation of all who live in the United
> States to stop
> > sanctions on Iran, to prevent what we have allowed
> Washington to do to
> > the Iraqi people from being done to the Iranian
> people. We are
> > failing to perform this obligation, as usual.
>
> Who's this "we," exactly? The "left" whose tininess
> you never tire of
> pointing out? Sometimes you write as if objective
> social conditions
> make any radical action impossible; other times, as
> if we just think
> the right thoughts hard enough we can change
> everything.
>
> >> Does the fight against U.S. imperialism so
> dominate
> >> all other concerns for you that you'll cheerlead
> - from
> >> the prosperous safety of Columbus, Ohio - for
> forces
> >> that would like to cover you from head to toe
> because
> >> the exposure of your mere forearm would be an
> >> intolerable provocation?
> >
> > It's up to the Iranian people to change their
> government if they wish,
> > though I'd advise them, based on history...
>
> No kidding, for the third time. But that's not
> relevant to your
> cheerleading for Islamism because of its alleged
> virtue as an anti-
> imperialist force, or your weird and indecipherable
> position on the
> subject line, universal asceticism and social
> leveling.
>
> Ok, enough of this for a while.
>
> Doug
>
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