As y'all know I agree with Yoshie about the post-Marxist age. Marxism is pretty much as good as theory as it ever was. As a so-identified political movement, it's dead. I have an unpublished paper on this that I'll send to anyone who likes; it used to be available in one form or another on Bitch's Pulp Culture site, but I don't know whether it still is.
--- Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/21/07, Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > Yoshie can speak for herself, but I think her
> opinion
> > is the that best that contemporary Iran can
> > realistically do is its current government. Which
> may
> > or may not be true, I don't know.
>
> Working people in Japan (where I am from) and the
> USA (where I live)
> are very passive and often apolitical today, whereas
> those in Iran
> have never been. Left to their own devices, free
> from interventions
> of the empire and its loyal opposition, the people
> of Iran will
> continue to reform their nation, the way they want
> to, just as they
> have been since the foundation of the Islamic
> Republic.
>
> To be sure, it's a long shot to radically change
> Iran's basic
> political structure, let alone its class foundation,
> to give more
> power to the working class, but that is true of
> Japan and the USA, and
> much of the rest of the world as well. In fact, the
> toughest nut to
> crack is the USA, where big capital rules, unlike in
> Iran. Seriously,
> there is no precedent in the history of capitalism
> where a plutocratic
> empire like the USA ceased to be one and became a
> democratic republic
> on account of its workers' class struggle.
>
> We live in the post-Marxist age. Hugo Chavez says
> he is not a
> Marxist: "Agregó: 'Soy socialista, bolivariano,
> revolucionario.
> Respeto la vía marxista, pero yo no soy marxista. No
> puedo compartir
> esa tesis porque esa es una visión determinista del
> socialismo'"
> (Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, "Chávez reitera
> que no es marxista:
> Soy socialista, bolivariano y revolucionario,"
> 22/07/07,
> <http://www.aporrea.org/ideologia/n98394.html>).
> Good for him and his
> people. If he had been a Marxist, he would never
> have acquired the
> personality and perspective necessary to lead his
> nation at this point
> in history.
>
> I'd say the same about Iran: its leaders,
> intellectuals, and rank and
> file had better not think like typical Marxists, not
> to mention
> typical Western Marxists, today. They, however,
> would do well to take
> what they can from anti-imperialist schools of the
> Marxist tradition,
> as well as other political and intellectual
> traditions useful for
> their struggle. In some ways, they already have,
> though they do not
> necessarily realize that. I hope that Iran will
> continue to
> strengthen its ties with Latin socialists, of Cuba,
> Venezuela,
> Bolivia, Nicaragua, and so on. Then, perhaps
> Iranians can better
> understand what they are fighting for, building new
> principles out of
> the principles they already have and those they will
> learn from Latin
> socialists ("Marx to Ruge," September 1843,
>
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_09.htm>).
>
> On 9/21/07, andie nachgeborenen
> <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > My point
> > is rather than not every actually existing
> reaction to
> > capitalism deserves our endorsement as opposed to
> our
> > understanding.
>
> Islam in Iran doesn't need my endorsement, as I am
> neither Muslim nor
> Iranian, nor yours, for that matter. But leftists
> in the West would
> probably understand it better if they shifted their
> standpoint from
> the one that takes the West's historical development
> as the path that
> the rest of the world will necessarily, or ought to,
> follow.
>
> On 9/21/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Sep 21, 2007, at 1:49 PM, Chris Doss wrote:
> >
> > > Yoshie can speak for herself, but I think her
> opinion
> > > is the that best that contemporary Iran can
> > > realistically do is its current government.
> Which may
> > > or may not be true, I don't know.
> >
> > That's a pretty gloomy POV. We'll see what happens
> come 2009.
> <snip>
> > Financial Times - September 21, 2007
> >
> > Khatami plots comeback
> > By Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
> <snip>
> >
> > Whether this proves to be more than wishful
> thinking remains to be
> > seen. Mr Khatami, who governed in 1997-2005 with a
> reformist agenda
> > that advocated "religious democracy" at home and
> detente with the
> > west, ended his second term disillusioned and
> facing accusations that
> > he had disappointed his support base.
> >
> > While hardliners blocked some of his key reforms,
> including attempts
> > to expand the powers of the presidency, his
> followers became
> > disenchanted with his inclination to compromise
> rather than confront
> > his opponents.
> >
> > His government's emphasis on political reform -
> overshadowing
> > attention on social and economic problems - also
> proved costly,
> > facilitating the rise of a populist Mr
> Ahmadi-Nejad.
> <snip>
> > But Mr Khatami has joined forces with the
> so-called conservative
> > pragmatists - the moderate conservatives close to
> Akbar Hashemi
> > Rafsanjani, also a former president - to undermine
> Mr Ahmadi-Nejad.
> >
> > They are hoping that within two years, the
> president's populist
> > economicpolicies - to reduce inflation and tackle
> unemployment -
> > would have sufficiently backfired and provokedan
> erosion of popular
> > support.
>
> What's so hopeful about an anti-populist coalition
> of Khatami and
> Rafsanjani? Association with Rafsanjani weighs
> Khatami with
> Rafsanjani's record on the issues -- especially
> civil liberties --
> that most define the reformist movement in the
> public mind and makes
> it even more unlikely that the reformists would try
> to appeal to
> working people on "social and economic problems,"
> other than on the
> pledge to reduce inflation, perhaps, on which too,
> by the way,
> Rafsanjani's record is worse than that of the
> current administration:
> it's under the Rafsanjani administration (3 August
> 1989 – 2 August
> 1997) that Iran saw the highest inflation rate (in
> 1995-1996 -- see
> "Figure 1. Money Growth and Inflation,
> 1958/59-2005/06" at
>
<http://montages.blogspot.com/2007/09/inflation-iran-and-venezuela.html>).
> --
> Yoshie
>
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
____________________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! oneSearch: Finally, mobile search that gives answers, not web links. http://mobile.yahoo.com/mobileweb/onesearch?refer=1ONXIC