When I responded to your recent posts, I found this old post sitting right next to it in alphabetical order in my in box. I should have been more attentive, but this is what sleep deprivation does to a person: you just keep going on semiautomatic pilot.
The Obama presidency is already dead in the water, and I'm not so much interested in debating the Middle East. My interest in the Jewish question, for example, is mostly historical, but I find it remains such a hot issue that I can't say anything at all about the Jews in any capacity without others immediately connecting it to Israel and denouncing me as a Zionist, though I've never written a single word in support of Israel of any of its policies, and I'm generally interested in questions unconnected to the Middle East. I'm not so much interested in making a political intervention as cleaning up the polluted rhetoric that effectively detracts from clarification and intelligent intervention, and I'm only interested in doing that because of the filth I'm constantly exposed to on the Internet even while minding my own business. However, as I've insisted, the politics of desperation and spectatorship are symptomatic of the moribund state of the left, if not everywhere in the world, anywhere I've had contact with people. And there's another point I made some time ago that didn't get noticed. It's quite one thing for people in the region to take extreme positions out of desperation, or to confront the problem concretely without taking on a more sophisticated perspective. It's quite another for spectators a half world away with no particular connection to the Middle East acting like rabid dogs. On the contrary, it's just because of the distance that political spectators--who may also double as useless "activists"--from the scene of the carnage, need to be exercise greater clarity in their grasp of the historical logic of the situation and in their agitprop. But just the opposite is happening. Secondly, there's the question of the corruption of young minds being recruited into radicalism by sectarian organizations. I'm not proud of what I was thinking as a teenager, and I see 20-year olds now, gung ho fresh converts to radicalism, adopting the most awful sound bite approaches to political problems, worst of all the impossible politics of the Middle East, without any background of historical depth or personal life experience. It's all the politics of empty gesture. What does it in fact mean to support anyone long distance? What is the significance of "taking a position"? It's child's play who decide to be against, but who is there there to be for? The degeneration of politics, including oppositional politics, makes it increasingly impossible to simply take a position backing any particularly political player? If there's anything worse than secular nationalism, it's religious nationalism. If there's anything worse than bourgeois politics with a democratic face, it's outright fascist politics. Who then is there to back, especially from thousands of miles away? I don't trust the left to do anything competently. Pointless floundering is its stock-in-trade. At 08:54 AM 11/17/2009, yves coleman wrote: >I dont know why this old post comes up now, a year later after it was posted >! > >To answer your questions. I dont know what I would do if I was an isolated >individual who "wanted to do something" in an unfavorable situation both for >me and for the working class historically. The decision would depend on many >specific factors I cant list here and which would be more related to fiction >than to reality. >If I was in a position to form a group or to join a group defending class >positions I would not loose my time in Stalinist (German CP) or >nationalist-antisemtic (Hamas) or third wordist groups (Chavez party). > >As regards the Hamas, I would not even try because they would probably kill >me given my opposition both to religion, clerical fascism and antisemitism. > >And if I was living in Venezuela today (which I did many years ago) I would >knock on the door of El Libertario and see if their acts correspond to their >nice words... And then decide. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
