>--- On Tue, 1/20/09, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> > From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> > Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Frank: BHO should welcome their hatred
> > To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> > Date: Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 1:56 PM
> > On Jan 20, 2009, at 2:46 PM, shag wrote:
> >
> > > If I've understood you correctly, I do have to
> > wonder why Obama should be
> > > aware of what a leftist/leftish critique of his
> > activities is. I could see
> > > him being aware of what various democrats and liberals
> > think, but I can't
> > > see him being particularly aware of how Marxists think
> > and, if he is, my
> > > guess is that he'd get it quite wrong. I don't
> > know, I just think that
> > > it's fairly easy to be a very smart person and go
> > through life being
> > > completely in the dark about leftist/leftish critique
> > of politics in the
> > > u.s -- or elsewhere for that matter.
> >
> > I ain't read it, but in one of his "books,"
> > Obama reports on having gone to a Socialist Scholars
> > Conference in New York while he was at Columbia.
>
>BHO is no dummy and odds are he is reasonably aware of main currents in
>left politics. He was a communitory organizer, means he was surrounded for
>years with lefties of various varieties. He was an acadenic at U of C, not
>the leftist place in the world or even Shytown, but there are enough
>lefties of one kind or another around even U of C LS to keep him apprised
>of the picture. He has some sort of relation with Bill Ayers. He went to
>black nationalist liberation theology church for decades. And he is
>extremely bright and reads a lot.
>
>So I am quite sure he could set out, in a lawyerlike hypothetical fashion,
>an impressive left critique of his positions and actions. Actually, I
>think he probably understands better than any other Prez we have had what
>a critique like that would be. But he rejects this critique, whether out
>of principle or raw ambition. What did you expect? If he ran on
>Kuchinich's platform he would not be Prez now.
>
>Why do you say "books," in scare quotes, Doug? I'm no fan of BHO, but I
>read substantial parts of the first one and thought it was actually
>precent decent of its kind. Unlike some other politicians, he has had to
>write for a living, and unlike some writers with ideas he can actually
>telklk a story with characters.
Like Joseph, my experience in community organizing is that few people actually examine or discuss what they're doing in an especially abstract way. Frankly, I don't know what to make of his community organizing, as it was IIRC mostly about getting people to vote -- not, IME, an area that's a hotbed of marxist influenced radicalism. The Saul Alinksy version, when I was working with people in that tradition, seemed pretty hostile to marxist/marxish thought. What you get out of his speeches is a man who was shaped deeply by communitarian thought, which would have been big stuff when he was coming up, intellectually.
And then there is, at least in my experience, a big disjuncture between academic marxism and what happens on the ground. In my hometown, for instance,there were people who'd moved into the area under the notion that they could radicalize workers in factories. For years I worked with these folks and I learned not a whit about what they actually thought -- in terms of the big picture -- until I had a full-on Marxist professor and I learned most of *that* sitting in her office asking questions, and reading books she gave me or told me about in response to those questions. And then I encountered a couple of others in the anti-war movement -- c. Gulf War.
It wasn't, actually, until this list that I've been exposed to a full-on critique from Marxist perspectives.
At any rate, my question was to Carrol, about *his* reasons for *his* assumption -- since it's unlikely that Carrol has read his books or investigated much of anything about Obama at all. From what y'all say, it seems likely O has a more sophisticated understanding than anyone else who's ever been in office -- and I suspect, given the communitarian influence -- that it's a rejection of Marxist critique out of principle.
By the way, given Carrol's enthusiasm, I am waiting patiently for Moishe Postone's _Time, Labor, and Social Domination_. I'll dive in as soon as it arrives. Anyone else up for a read?
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