Proyect on Putin and the "left":
Russia is
in the throes of a nationalistic/Orthodox church deep freeze and it is
regrettable that so many on the left cheer Putin on as if he is Che Guevara.
--almost as regrettable as those that cheer Che Guevara as if he were Lenin, which is
--almost as regrettable as those that cheer Lenin as if he were Marx
Proyect on Michael Moore:
And this idiot had the nerve to beg Ralph Nader not to run. He is
finally eating his words.
--as opposed to those who begged Nader to run (see below).
Proyect on his favorite next word-eater:
It would help if the left could get its act together and organize an
independent campaign around a charismatic leftist candidate. Nader is
out of the question with his stupid right-left convergence politics but
someone like Cornel West could be huge (although I doubt that he would
run.)
--because why? West isn't eating his words re Obama? Or because we're suddenly hungry and need words to eat?
Personal favorite:
Proyect list member on cynical self-centered technologies:
The Gates initiative in education was always cynical and self-interested, centered as it is upon heavy investments in new technologies.
Sent from my Windows Phone (emphasis added)
Coming soon: Object Lessons of Overproduction
Yeah, I finally signed off marxmail after the stable of ultra-left loonies kept by Louis began to spout the line of support of "national self-determination" for the actually existing multinational Ukrainian state, and of a "democratic revolution" as featuring that state pummeling one of its nationalities simply because they happened to be Russian. It is actually a prescription for the disintegration of the state into civil war. This is a question that CAN be addressed separately form the question of Putin's Russia's undeniable role in promoting the same. In either case it amounts to complicity in a war crime, as in any case there is not a shred of anything revolutionary or progressive in the civil war. That really was the last straw in a litany of all-too-convenient silences and omissions.
ReplyDeleteBasically, I don't think Louis is being intellectually honest these days. His list practice is now similar to the other person you mention, Doug Henwood. The list master lays out carefully couched and partial perspectives, while a gang of crazies is kept around the corner to do the dirty work, filling in the rhetorical blanks as they beat you with verbal lead pipes in a back alley, while the plantation master can claim plausible deniability: "Hey, I didn't say that!". In the case of Henwood this involved "left"-zionists back in 2000, before the ziocon crazy shit really hit the fan. Don't think Henwood could get away with it today, after Iraq and Gaza times 2.
That 's key. The Maidan protests were driven by deep economic distress, and thus we're born, warts and all, against the government administering that distress. At the same time, there is nothing revolutionary, and everything counter to revolution in this civil war.
ReplyDeleteYes, not only Ukrainians, but all of us can only dream of having a West German standard of living. This was the main illusion of the Maidan, that this was achievable under the status quo beyond the borders of Ukraine to the West.
ReplyDeleteBut revolutionary upsurges come in waves. The Arab Spring and the Maidan have been smothered for the time being, but when they - joined by others - return it will be with just that many fewer illusions.