Hi Jerry,
I'd rather have had your take on how Marxian theory helps us understand
this frightfully sad Yugoslavia business, but I suppose I might as well
have a go at what you did give me:
>Rob:
>
>"We" are not "the West".
>
>"We" are Marxists who have disdain for and opposition to the aims of
>imperialists.
>
>"We" (at least most of us) are class-consciousness members of the working
>class who are in opposition to the bourgeoisie and _its_ conception of
>"the West".
>
>Workers of the world, unite!
Stirring stuff. Of course, one could take this to mean we should, as
principled Marxists, have nothing to do with the structures and processes
of the governments we actually have. That'd be comfy, because then nothing
the bastards ever do would in any way be a responsibility of ours.
Now I don't say you mean that, but to pick me up on the simple proposition
that we have some small input into limiting what our governments can get
away with, and that those with even that modest agency in the world of the
moment are obliged to exercise that agency, seems to imply it.
I may, or may not, be a Marxist (that depends, amongst lefties more than
anywhere else, upon who's doing the defining), but whatever I am, I am it
within a formal polity within what we all understand others to mean by the
sobriquet 'West'.
The West is made up of citizens amongst whom we are numbered. And I do not
believe liberalism's formal guarantees are ever completely without content
- we are not slaves, we are not serfs; we are proletarians. We have forced
governments to compromise before (like when we booted out PM Menzies'
attempt to criminalise the Australian Communist Party in 1950, or when we
stopped the Labor Government opening another uranium mine in 1986, or like
today, when the voters of NSW used what little say they're granted to stop
that state's privatisation campaign cold).
Ours not just to imagine and work towards a new world, mate. Ours also to
live ethically and productively in conditions not of our choosing. Like
the West circa 1999.
Cheers,
Rob.
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