Your reply is one the most disgusting pieces of excrement I've ever seen on this mailing list. It's so smug, misguided and blatantly false it really isn't worth replying to. For some reason, I going to do just that.
> *The verdict: If the objective is to win tenure or other academic favor
brilliantly successful/a vile atrocity from the perspective of class
struggle (i.e., the struggle for empowerment and emancipation for imperial
forces).*
Considering I was born in 1989, turned 20 a few weeks ago and have less than 60 college credits under my belt, its safe to assume that I'm not seeking tenure. In the article posted on *The Activist*, the blog of the *Young*Democratic Socialists, I mention that I was an undergraduate. Does a YDS blog seem like a good venue for academic favor in your mind?
Your definition of class struggle as “*the struggle for empowerment and emancipation [from] imperial forces*” is idiotic (assuming “for” was a typo) and doesn't include *class* just struggle, something that's quite telling.
> *The general conclusion of the article is that Zizek has little of
substance to say, apart from worn Marxist cliches, but does a charismatic
job of the saying.*
*Completely incorrect*. My comments on Zizek being often "wrong" was meant as a starting point to discuss his support for the revolutionary tradition. I don't object to the revolutionary legacy of the Jacobins or the 1917, which was established in the first part of my piece. I do believe that Zizek focuses far too much on the contradictions of capitalism and on revolutionary action and not enough on the *necessary precursors* to meaningful *class struggle* and social change. The point of the article was to advocate that the strategy of "orthodox" Marxism, namely the "strategy of patience" of the Kautsyian-center.
> *" As soon being entertaining, hip and good looking is given priority over
the truth we know we are in trouble”*
The line you quote is a tongue-in-cheek nod to the idea that most of Zizek's
supporters are NYU, New School, etc. graduate students, who don't have a
firm grip of Marx or Lacan, but do flock to Zizek's lectures. P.S.-- Zizek
an overweight, old man. He is however an academic that's very much in vogue
and one that I'm forced to pay attention to, because he professes a believe
in revolutionary Marxism.
>*And there is the usual canard--with citation of a conspicuously
Jewish-sounding, probably pro-Israel scholar*
What a bunch of anti-Semetic bullshit. It's not even VEILED anti-Semetism.
> *about religico-political suffering in the Arab world being do to a
"post-Fordian" paradigm shift in economic tectonics and not, at least in
significant part, to Western especially (with especially Israeli connivance)
US imperial interference; the role the recent US invasion of Iraq may have
played, a major event not to mention, is completely out of sight.*
*What the fuck is a “religico-political”?* If you DON'T acknowledge that the collapse of state-centric economic systems; state socialism, Keynesianism, states that pressured state-developmentalist import-substitution towards a return to liberalization and the second wave of globalization has had a major impact on the world your an idiot.
The defeat of the Arab nations in 1968 obviously played a role in destroying Arab nationalism, but the primary cause was the failure to adapt to these economic changes, making room in the radical Right. *The point* of this example is to show how capitalist collapse without intact organizations of proletarian power can open room for demagogic forces to enter the political scene.
> *typical quality of contemporary academic writing: i.e., evasive,
irresponsible, flippant about human suffering and outright dishonest in
places.
If one article could encapsulate all that I hate about left-liberal-intellectuals this is the one.*
What's "academic" about this writing? What's evasive? What's irresponsible?*Does this **all** boil down to me quoting a Jew*? Or some simmering White-guilt boiling inside you and pushing you away from any author that might have some critical things to say about “anti-imperialist” radical right Islamism.
*The article is very clear.* 1) It's a defense of the idea of revolution from liberal revisionists. 2) It's an attack on the “vulture theory” that collapse will inherently benefit the Left 3) It states that a “strategy of patience” and the slow process of class organization is necessary for the Left to take advantage of revolutionary situations (ie: my citing of Portugal). In the absence of an intellectual, organized Left, the best we can hope for is riots like in Greece.
> *Presumably Noam Chomsky being a prominent one in mind. The author does of
course have the tact not to criticism the man too harshly doubtless
appreciating how well respected he is and not wanting to cause offense, in
spite of the fact the article is contra everything he stands for.
I don't see how this article is “contra” to everything Chomsky stands for. Real anarchists, not the “lifestylists” and assorted anti-intellectual morons that populate the American anarchist movement knew how to organize and struggle as a class, do you think the CNT/FAI were born overnight?
Even if I was contesting Chomsky's views you seem to suggest that the best way to do so would be an ad hominen attack. Unfortunately, that's something I normally reserve for idiotic psuedo-Leftists like yourself.