>>Charles, Austin, etc.: the question is not whether to work with Christians, whether they be ordinary folks on the street or even university professors. And if intellectuals are afraid of alienating their constituencies (real or imagined), they should keep their mouths shut rather than add to the lies and confusion already piled up to the sky. I foe wants to work with anyone, it should be on the basis of common rational interests, and other belief systems need not even be discussed. If people can't work on the basis of perceived material interests whatever else they believe, they are hopeless.<<
Comment Our ideological and theory differences as individual on the list is a case in point for instance. Nothing that Ralph or anyone writes as discourse, stands in the way of us working together to accomplish some objective, as practical activity that expresses the spontaneous striving of the laboring class in our society. For instance, a Voter's registration drive involves knocking on doors and signing people up and this is very little to do with the ideological distinctiveness of the individual. Either you want in and you don't, and the reasoning behind either choice is immaterial to accomplishing the goal. The same approach applies to preparation for strike action or mobilization of some action against police brutality. Thus, I must humbly decline - as humble as I can become, to kiss Ralph's ass, because writing is just words and words are words expressing thoughts. In order to place Cornel in perspective one can look at the jacket on his books: the bigger the picture the less interesting the inside ideological, philosophic and theory content. Cornel is not placed in a historical context and period of time by Ralph and other because they have not thought out the historical period and the subtle and not so sublte shifts that took place in the economic and political fabric of America. Cornel was groomed by a complex of social forces and this takes nothing away from his gigantic intellectual capacity as an individual. I will state the following for the record. When I was bouncing between New York and Detroit in 1980/1981, I would try and see Cornel ever chance I got and during a hanging out session that took place at the New York Theological Seminary, I asked him how he got his job their. He said "man they were just interested in a nigga that read Kant" and later we hit a nightclub in Harlem. We were hanging out with a somewhat famous son of a certain Revered and ended up in Jamaican Queens at a party, where according to Cornel, I consumed a huge quantify of liquor, with the Reverend son following in wake, and both of us laughed our ass off the next morning, being faced with the problem of sobering "the son" up so he could preach that Sunday. My point is to authenticate my experience to clarify why I have no intention of kissing Ralph's ass now or in the future. The historical period is important and deals with a continuum of history that is lived experienced as America. America has a memory with thousands of competing accounts seeking to authenticate our history. "Niggas got a problem, Houston." Jay-Z What became Cornels life altering political platform was the conference: "Theology in the Americas: Detroit II." This was my contact point in 1980. I attended this Conference as an assignment - a party assignment, along with General Baker Jr. Our purpose was to impact and help write the programmatic approach of the "labor section" or committee of the Liberation Theology Movement. The Conference had a very strong "Black" presence or Civil Rights presence. Holding the Conference in Detroit was brilliant given its immediate and historical importance to the labor movement, the trade union movement and the spontaneous striving of the African American masses. It is the specific stage of spontaneous striving of the African American masses, (as distinct from the industrial trade union movement and the labor movement) that explains the environment and context in which Cornel West became . . . Cornel West. Cornel West expresses a polarity within the Church Movement, which is not the meaning of Christianity. Those not familiar with working within the Church Movement, tend to spew forth nonsense and ignorance of real life America and forget that the splitting of the Church Movement in America was the one of the pivots of the fight that lead to the overthrow of slavery. The early 1980s, as a historical period, brings to the end a specific phase of the spontaneous movement of the African American masses. 1965 and 1967 represents a political juncture in the spontaneous movement of the African American masses, which is probably something Ralph is not aware of and avoid by much of the so-called Marxists, except the Black Marxists active during this [period of time and not under the spell of the historical ideology of the CPUSA or the various Trotskyists groups. Watts 1965 continued the rebellion that broke out in Birmingham Alabama 1963 and brought to an end the domination of the ideology of nonviolence. Detroit 1967, was at that time the greatest internal uprising within the US State against the state since the Civil War in America. Not only was nonviolence rejected by the masses in fact, but this rejection spit the African American peoples movement and saw for the first time in our history the political separation of the black workers from the black bourgeoisie. The formation of be the political infrastructure for the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, took place on the basis of the 1967 Detroit Rebellion, with the call for such an organization being put forward in the theory journal "Vanguard," in 1966. Post Detroit 1967 is the emergence of a political period of history witnessing the separation of the black workers from our own bourgeoisie, black and white. The League of Revolutionary Black Workers quickly split with the workers and student section joining the California Communist League and becoming the Communist League in the early 1970s. The reason none of us joined the CPUSA was their theoretical basis, which we understood to be a form of Marxism suitable to the best paid workers in heavy industrial or a form of trade unionism covered with Marxist phraseology and slavish clinging to however was in the leadership of the Communist Party Soviet Union. Trotskyists groups held zero attraction and not so much because of Leon Trotsky (at first), but because of the kind of people we understood them to draw within their orbit. The kind of people the Trotskyist groups drew to them tended to be white middle class students and this is in itself a historical question of class movement, rather than the narrow subjective definition of race. Quickly stated, the passivity of the working class, in the context of the movement of the African American masses against Jim Crow, produced an alignment of the black masses as laborers, fighting the system, and this fight evoked and found moral appeal and support by millions of youth Anglo Americans, of whom many would go on to become fine Marxists. The bottom line is that his alliance of social forces appeared as many Anglo American middle class youth attempting to graph themselves onto the struggle of the black workers that erupted as post 1967 Detroit. This is not a criticism but an explanation that explains a peculiarity of our history. As such, it is nobody's "fault." Much later I would personally become a consistent defender of Stalin role in history, which of course does not mean one agrees with his every utterance or decision. This Stalin polarity meant a different approach to what was then called the National Colonial Question. Then again I do not agree with every utterance and decision of Karl Marx. "Niggas got a problem, Houston." Jay-Z The problem was that under Jim Crow there could be no real political separation between the Black Bourgeoisie and the Black Workers. Thus, the black community during the period of the meant the community of blacks without regard to class. Within this community there was always a HNIC - Head Nigga In Charge." Thus, implying that Cornel is the HNIC today means something very different that HNIC in the past? This difference helps explain this vision and writings on the so-called Jewish-Black alliance. This is some of the political history that made Detroit the meeting place for a militant group of Theologians, with a heavy concentration of peoples of color throughout the Western Hemisphere. This history is complex and to detail for one writing. Much of this has been written about in the past on this list. My approach is never to approach Cornel's writings as if they contained some inherent validity and authenticity, especially philosophic writings. Philosophy has a history but this does not make any of its utterances authentic expressions of the life of society. Really. Writings expressing the life of society are by definition anti-philosophic. More later Melvin P. (http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
