Wasn't there someone who once said that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce? Some old guy with a beard. WEB DuBois, maybe.
--- On Sun, 10/4/09, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Michaels, Against Diversity
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Sunday, October 4, 2009, 4:23 PM
>
> On Oct 4, 2009, at 5:09 PM, wrobert at uci.edu
> wrote:
>
> > I thought Reed's comments on this question were quite
> interesting(on
> > the show, it was one of the more provocative things
> that I have heard
> > in a while), but in a certain sense, despite the fact
> that Tim's
> > response isn't the most coherent thing that I have
> read, and is
> > missing the target a bit in his critique of you,
> certainly doesn't
> > fit the mold of the multi-culturalist who dismisses
> the need to
> > critique capital.
>
> In the latest LBO, Adolph has a piece on "anti-racism,"
> which, as you might imagine, is rather critical of the
> concept. I'll be posting it to the web in a couple of weeks.
> But here's a relevant excerpt:
>
> > Anti-Marx. I've been struck by the level of visceral
> and vitriolic anti-Marxism I've seen from this strain of
> defenders of antiracism as a politics. It's not clear to me
> what drives it because it takes the form of snide dismissals
> than direct arguments. Moreover, the dismissals typically
> include empty acknowledgment that "of course we should
> oppose capitalism," whatever that might mean. In any event,
> the tenor of this anti-Marxism is reminiscent of those
> right-wing discourses, many of which masqueraded as liberal,
> in which only invoking the word "Marxism" was sufficient to
> dismiss an opposing argument or position.
> >
> > This anti-Marxism has some curious effects. Leading
> professional antiracist Tim Wise came to the defense of
> Obama's purged green jobs czar Van Jones by dismissing
> Jones's "brief stint with a pseudo-Maoist group," and
> pointing instead to "his more recent break with such groups
> and philosophies, in favor of a commitment to eco-friendly,
> sustainable capitalism." In fact, Jones was a core member of
> a revolutionary organization, STORM, that took itself very
> seriously, almost comically so.
> >
> > And are we to applaud his break with radical politics
> in favor of a style of capitalism that few actual
> capitalists embrace? This is the substance of Wise's
> defense. This sort of thing only deepens my suspicions about
> antiracism's status within the comfort zone of
> neoliberalism's discourses of "reform." More to the point, I
> suspect as well that this vitriol toward radicalism is
> rooted partly in the conviction that a left politics based
> on class analysis and one focused on racial injustice are
> Manichean alternatives.
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