Charles Brown wrote:
I think Yoshie is right on this one. "West" is the West's name for itself: "Western Civilization", "the West in the Cold War", etc. I think Lou doth protest too much; he is uncomfortable because of the truth in Yoshie's criticism/critique.
Her critique is based on cheap demagogy, and poorly applied at that. As I said before, it is an attempt to tip the scales in favor of one side in a debate. The "Marxist-Leninist" left is skilled in this, but uses different terminology--"petty bourgeois" being the favorite. But it amounts to the same thing. Who wants to be labeled "petty bourgeoisie"? It conjures up images of epicene college professors with subscriptions to the Nation Magazine who send money in to Amnesty International and drive Volvos. They are second cousins to the stereotypical Blue State voter. "Western Leftist" is simply a new term for what amounts to the same thing. When I broke with "Marxism-Leninism", it was partially an attempt to get away from stereotypical thinking of this sort. I was afraid to openly question the SWP's "turn to industry" in 1978 out of fear of being labeled "petty bourgeois". I'll be damned if I soft pedal my criticisms of Lula, Ahmadinejad, Thabo Mbeki, Hu Jintao or some other skunk for fear of being called a "Western Leftist". I absolutely hate group-think. The idea that people like Yoshie (or Walter Lippmann on Marxmail) can set themselves up as emissaries of the worldwide revolutionary movement (which mainly consists of equal portions of ethanol and the Quran, it would seem) reminds me too much of Cominternism. Instead of invoking the Vatican, CP'ers used to invoke the Kremlin. What position do we take on putting Japanese-Americans into internment camps in WWII? I guess we support it if Stalin does. This is not Marxism. It is sycophancy.
As to Yoshie not including herself in it, uhhhhh, you have noticed that she is from Japan , haven't you ? Shhhhh. How white of you to demand that Yoshie include herself as white. This is getting embarrassing.
You didn't get my reference to Yoshie's virtual flight from the Evil, Occidental Empire. Through her assiduous cherry-picking of Jstor articles, she has been metamorphosized into an Iranian. I would say something along the lines of what George Galloway said about Christopher Hitchens and the insect world, but I am too polite for that.
