Carrol Cox wrote,
>One must assume, rather, that they know what they are doing, and
>that they are doing it competently. Identify their motives with their
>actions.
I take this as axiomatic. But it then raises another question: HOW DO they
know what they are doing? Could they be ever so successful at managing
IMPERIALISM without an explicit concept and analysis of what they were
managing AS imperialism? My hunch is that the "anti-communist ideology"
provides them with a pretty good approximation of a negative traditional
Marxism. A couple of points about anti-communist ideology: 1. it is the
intellectual product of people well versed in traditional Marxism, many of
them ex-Marxists and 2. it has only become more aggressive in the wake
of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The naive expectation would be that
anti-communism would dry up and blow away without the focus of the Evil
Empire.
If the left is ever going to have a chance against the hegemon, we're
going to have to look inside weird critters like Marvin Olasky and David
Horowitz and see what makes them tic. Anti-communism is like one of those
Russion nesting dolls, inside the last doll is an *interpretation* of
historical materialism.
Tom Walker
Sandwichman and Deconsultant
Bowen Island
(604) 947-2213
