[lbo-talk] at least he's black!

shag shag at cleandraws.com
Mon Feb 18 17:43:33 PST 2008


At 06:32 PM 2/18/2008, wrobert at uci.edu wrote:
>I don't think the analogy works. For all of the rhetorical conservatism
>of the 1905 protests, it still involved a series challenge to the
>structure of the regime. I don't think you find any sort of comparable
>transgression within the context of the Obama campaign. A better analogue
>to 1905 probably is the series of pro-immigration rallies over the past
>couple years. You have a comparable conservatism with the use of the U.S.
>flag (which is tactical, just as the 1905 example probably was) and at the
>same time which brought out millions into the political sphere in ways
>that hadn't occurred before. When I see Obama bringing his supporters
>into the streets I'll concede your point, but until then, he is a
>politician running an efficient campaign. robert wood

I agree. All I see at work and elsewhere is people coming out to vote. There's no interest in politics. There's no interest in doing anything more than pushing 'buttons' on a screen. People don't really even want to talk about it. Yeah. Cool. Black dewd running for office. I voted for him. How 'bout them Lakers, huh? They may be quiet about it because I'm a white chick, but that's not entirely clear.

And in a city that's 60% black, that only about 3-5% more voted in the electoral districts with the highest black population doesn't suggest to me any kind of mass movement. It's a rock concert.

Finally, I wouldn't be so quick to assume other people who are Marxists are the purists you make them out to be, Julio. I typically like to quote Marx's letter to Arnold Ruge as to why I think we should get involved with "the struggles and wishes of the age". But the point, for marx, was that we had to advance that politics in ways that enabled people to express ever more radical ideas and intuitions. If you aren't doing anything to push that along, the ruthless criticism of the existing order, then it's a lot of PINO horse shittery.

<quote>

For even though the question "where from" presents no problems, the question "where to?" is a rich source of confusion....If we have no business with the construction of the future or with organizing it...there can still be no doubt about the task confronting us at present: the ruthless criticism of the existing order...

[W]e wish to influence our contemporaries [earlier he notes the importance of recognizing particular historical exigencies within each country that critical theory must attend to and take seriously]...The problem is how best to achieve this. In this context there are two incontestable facts. Both religion and politics are matters of the first importance in contemporary Germany. Our task must be to latch onto these as they are and not to oppose them with any ready-made system such as the _Voyage en Icarie_. [...] Just as religion [by which marx means theory, philosophy] is the table of contents of the theoretical struggles of mankind, so the political state enumerates its practical struggles. Thus the particular form and nature of the political state contains all social struggles, needs and truths within itself. It is therefore anything but beneath its dignity to make even the most specialized political problem--such as the distinction between the representative system and the Estates system--into an object of its criticism. For this problem only expresses at the political level the distinction between the rule of man and the rule of private property. Hence the critic must concern himself with these political questions [which the crude socialists find beneath their dignity]. By demonstrating the superiority of the representative system over the Estates system he will interest a great party in practice. By raising the representative system from its political form to a general one...he will force this party to transcend itself--for its victory is also its defeat.

Nothing prevents us...from taking sides in politics, i.e. from entering into real struggles and identifying ourselves with them. This does not mean that we shall confront the world with new doctrinaire principles and proclaim: Here is the truth, on your knees before it...We shall not say: Abandon your struggles, they are mere folly; let us provide you with the true campaign-slogans. Instead we shall show the world why it is struggling.... [...] Our programme must be: the reform of consciousness not through dogmas but by analyzing mystical consciousness obscure to itself, whether it appear in religious or political form. It will then become plain that the world has long since dreamed of something of which it needs only to become conscious for it to possess it in reality. It will then become plain that our task is not to draw a sharp mental line between past and future but to complete the thought of the past. Lastly, it will become plain that mankind will not begin any new work, but will consciously bring about the completion of its old work.

from Letters from the Franco-German Yearbooks--a reply to Ruge's claims about the futility of engaging in actually existing political struggles.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_09-alt.htm

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