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NEWS & LETTERS, November 2004Readers' ViewsPRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS 2004: IS THERE ANY WAY OUT? "Popular opinion" in Europe saw the U.S.
election as a bizarre contest between a "party of God," allied with
"vanguardist" intellectuals hell-bent on a worldwide crusade for
"democratic revolution" and a shamefaced and ineffectual
"liberal" party led by a "tin man" capitalist. The campaign
and the result, however, exposed the shocking divisions within the country as
much as the division between "God's America" and "secular
Europe." I have my doubts whether the Bush regime will last
another four years. A global war is spiraling out of control and an exploding
debt crisis are a dangerous brew for the ruling class when, as the election has
shown, the people--whether Left or Right--are becoming more politicized and
active. --Dave Black, London, England What is the importance of this election? Is it the same old thing? I don't think so. Both Bush and Cheney represent something new in American political life, which is very scary. Many who voted for Kerry are opposed to broadening the war and the imposition of a police state in the U.S. while claiming to bring "democracy" to the Arab world. U.S. capitalism is in dire straights, it is faltering, and therefore a section of the ruling class is moving to a quasi-fascist solution to address it. --Ben, Oakland, California I don't think it's any secret why Kerry lost. He didn't present a real opposition. He went out of his way to sound like Bush on foreign policy. It will be terrible for this country if people conclude that the Republicans can only be "defeated" if we become more like them. --Iranian exile, Chicago I am appalled that so many people could vote for Bush. I
can't understand it. I have family and friends around the country and every
single one told me they could never vote for Bush. My sister's husband was
killed in Iraq two weeks ago. I got calls from friends of his in his unit who
said they were all going to vote against Bush. What is happening to this
country? --African-American nurse, Evanston, Illinois The high school students I speak with are very worried
about Bush's victory. They have quite a few misconceptions about the electoral
process and what actually happened in the 2000 elections, yet they want to learn
more about the political process and its problems. They believe that Bush will
reinstate the draft and keep the war in Iraq going. --Teacher, Detroit I recently got out of the service. I was in the army for
four years. I've been thinking a lot about moral values in light of what I went
through. I signed up to defend my country, but what would I have done if I were
sent to Abu Ghraib? Does a soldier have a moral obligation to disobey orders
they find dehumanizing? Where do you draw the line between acting out of your
own instinct for self-preservation and helping others? I wish someone had
discussed this during the election campaign. --Former GI, Illinois In this period social tensions are rising but they have
not yet taken on a specific political form. Kerry didn't really articulate the
problems this country is facing. There is dissolution of the social fabric. In
the 1930s three political groups emerged to relate to the unemployed, but now
there is not one. This is a period of ferment in which it looks as if we're
pulling in our own personal directions. --Paul, New York It is unfortunate but it appears we have only one party
that competes in our so-called democratic elections--the corporate party which
is comprised of two divisions called Democrat and Republican. I wish that all
other parties (socialist, libertarian, Green, etc.) were given as much air time
as the corporate party. Then we would have a choice. With Bush winning the
election we can say "It was a nice country while it lasted" or "I
remember when we used to be a great nation." --Prisoner, Nebraska I am an activist who works on developing communities
that are architecturally and socially friendly to the environment. I feel as
though people around the world should be able to vote in U.S. elections because
they are so strongly affected by the results. --Community activist, Detroit I was struck by the fact that Barack Obama got almost
80% of the vote in Illinois in his race for the Senate, while Kerry, who carried
the state, got 55%. I asked a few students who aren't politically active what
they thought of that. They said Kerry came off sounding like a regular
politician who didn't really speak from his heart whereas Obama seemed more
visionary in his approach. --Feminist philosopher, Illinois Defining ourselves by electoral politics happens in part
because the ruling classes campaign to "grind down the passions and forces
that can overthrow this society and to limit the horizon of our thought and idea
that we can build a new, human society," as Joshua Skolnick put it in the
October 2004 issue of N&L. Even while speaking of a highpoint in the
protests at the Republican National Convention, he stated that it was defined by
something less than a highpoint: the narrow and self-defeating logic of
electoral politics. We can see this narrowing of options and "grinding
down" everywhere. --Brown Douglas, Memphis Some believe that California Governor Schwarzenegger is
fundamentally different from the rest of the Republican Party because he is a
little progressive on some social issues. He did promote stem cell research in
the form of huge corporate welfare for the biotech industry. At the same time,
he helped defeat the initially popular proposition that would mandate health
care coverage for most workers in California. He is now rescinding requirements
won by the California Nurses Association to lower from six to five the number of
patients per nurse. California is open for the business of health care but not
for the care of its citizens. --Ron Brokmeyer, Oakland, California THE POLITICS OF AIDS Dr. Wangari Maathai, who just won the Nobel Peace Prize, has ignited controversy with her position on HIV/AIDS. She was quoted by the EAST AFRICAN STANDARD on Aug. 30 as saying: "We know the developed nations are using biological warfare... AIDS is not a curse from God to the Africans. It is a tool to control them designed by some evil-minded scientists." Certainly the imperialist nations have a history of using biological warfare--a prime example is the smallpox-infected blankets used against Native Americans in the 19th century. But the current spread of AIDS among women, especially in Africa, has much more to do with "how women's liberation is under direct attack from the Right," as Terry Moon wrote in her column on "Violence against women is a cause of AIDS" in the October 2004 issue of N&L. The Bush administration has politicized AIDS prevention, awarding funds promised to Africa through abstinence-only programs, which does not speak to the reality of African women's lives. To focus on "evil-minded scientists" could deflect people from organizing to change that reality which, as it is pointed out by Moon, must be confronted, challenged, and transformed. --Longtime feminist, Detroit Last week my doctor told me not to worry about my
contraction of AIDS, because, he said, 20 drugs are now on the market that can
allow me to live a normal life. I walked out of his office and said to myself,
so why is it that millions of people in Africa and elsewhere can't get those
drugs? Black people don't seem to matter much these days. --Black youth, Chicago BLACK THOUGHT TODAY I appreciated Peter Figueroa's review of John Alan's
book DIALECTICS OF BLACK FREEDOM STRUGGLES (October 2004 N&L). I liked
especially his conclusion, that "there are no shortcuts, no substitute for
constant critical questioning." One of our difficulties is struggling
against apathy and misinformation. --Subscriber, England There is increasing discussion these days of C.L.R.
James' NOTES ON DIALECICS. His book is interesting in bringing together a
discussion of Marxism and Hegel, but I am not sure what was his actual position
in the book on questions of organization. One moment he sounds like a Leninist
and the next moment he sounds like an anti-Leninist. --Graduate student, Indiana Editor's note: John Alan's DIALECTICS OF BLACK FREEDOM STRUGGLES contains an extensive discussion of James' NOTES ON DIALECICS, in which he takes issue with James' discussion of "dialectics of the party." JUSTICE FOR JANITORS One hundred and fifty janitors of Local 1877 marched
through downtown Los Angeles during the week of Oct. 25-29 during the noon heat,
protesting against Maguire Properties who asked their contractor, ABM
Janitorial, to reduce the number of janitors assigned to clean all its
prestigious downtown buildings. If accepted, this would amount to both a speedup
and a cut in wages. The janitors marched to and protested at a number of
buildings, including the Library Tower. They promised to go back. They have
stated "janitors in Los Angeles only get tricks and no treats from their
employer, ABM Janitorial." --Asian American, Los Angeles MARX AND ECONOMICS I was surprised to see a Reader's View in the October
issue state "Dunayevskaya said Engels was superior to Marx in
economics." I would like to know where Dunayevskaya said this. I doubt any
such statement exists. What she did say, in ROSA LUXEMBURG, WOMEN'S LIBERATION,
AND MARX'S PHILOSOPHY OF REVOLUTION is: "The reference is clearly to the
years 1843-44...when, as an economist, Engels was considerably more advanced
than Marx" (p. 120). However, by the late 1840s Marx had a far greater
understanding of economics than Engels. As Dunayevskaya stated, "Indeed,
all one has to do is read the kind of letters Engels addressed to Marx when he,
for the first time, was reading Vol. I of CAPITAL in galley proofs, to see how
much Engels did not know" (THE POWER OF NEGATIVITY, p. 226). No serious
student of Marxism can claim that Engels' knowledge of economics was superior to
Marx by the time he wrote CAPITAL. --Philosopher, Illinois VOICES OF PRISONERS In your "Who We Are and What We Stand For"
statement you say, "We stand for the development of new human relations,
what Marx first called a new Humanism." However, what you stand against is
much more clearly stated than what you are for. In many articles in N&L the
authors state that it isn't enough to say what you are opposed to--but you must
say what you are for to present the alternative. I agree with your new humanism
but this is an obscure or vague term--especially for someone new to the concept.
I suggest that you state exactly what you mean by that, in detail. --Michael Caddy, Lincoln, Nebraska I've been able to keep up with foreign news thanks to
your publication, which is important to me since I'm from Egypt. Most of what
you discuss in your articles affects not just myself but my family also. I am
highly appreciative for and thank you for the good work. --Carlos, San Luis Obispo, California I am totally against drug use but I have come to realize
that the war against drugs is a complete scam to get the politicians elected. It
is exactly the same as slavery--just without the white sheets. If they get their
way this slavery will be eternal. --N.H., Auborn, New York In the 1960s we were struggling for freedoms, but we did
not know what those freedoms were. By allowing the system to define our
struggle, 40 years later we are still in a state of slavery. The system that has
long oppressed us still controls our lives. The only freedom we as Blacks can
obtain is through a revolution to define our position in society and redefine
our existence. --C.B., Pendleton, Indiana There has to be something you can do, even in prison, to
keep your joy. Perhaps walking or going to church or reading. Our freedom has
been taken, but why let the bars hold us hostage? You have to become free within
yourself, working on your issues. No matter what your crime is, there are lots
of people with similar experiences. When we unite we can experience freedom. We
cannot let the correctional officers keep us apart. The lifers have taught me that you have to keep fighting
for yourself every day. If you don't, you let them win. --Woman prisoner, Chowchilla, California I have grown a lot since I came here. God was here when
I was lonely and needing someone. I get power and peace and hope from that. I am
not going to give up. I try to not focus on my problems but on the promise. I
didn't have a purpose before, but I do now: to tell how shameful it is that they
are stacking us in here like sardines. It's crazy. I am not into church much. Church is different than my
faith. Church goes by laws and rules. But faith needs to be about our relations
with each other. --Prisoner, Chowchilla, California MARXISM AND SCIENCE: AN ONGOING DISCUSSION Two points might be added to comments on Marx's critique
of "positivist circles of Comtist orientation" in Raha's "Sham
neutrality of science born of capitalism" in the October N&L. Engels'
attempt to accommodate Marx's theory to 19th century understanding of scientific
method proved to be disastrous for the Second International and post-Marx
Marxism. Positivism is the dialectical opposite of dialectical method, because
it is bereft of the speculative moment not only in dialectics, but in science
and thinking itself. Is Raha's critique a criticism of science per se or of
"scientism," the cultural expression of a positivist epistemology?
"Actually existing socialism" exhibited a crude type of worship of
scientific, technological, and industrial progress. But if Chernobyl is not the
epitaph of "Marxism" then neither is the Luddite movement. Marx did aspire to work out a critical science in
CAPITAL. However, he did not understand "science" within the framework
of a positivist epistemology. It is not "science" itself that is a
"lie" but the "sham neutrality" Raha exposes. --Tom More, Washington Raha introduces the myth of the neutrality of science,
but he really discusses the myth of the objectivity of science. Science is
objective in the sense that it is taken independent of subjects. Is this
objective? What makes science objective and infallible is born of an objectivity
that cannot be perceived, which comes from the separation Marx pointed out
between science and life. A human consciousness is in the machine, but it isn't
yours and you don't recognize it as such. It becomes anti-human. --David Mizuno'Oto, Oakland, California While there is a need for critique of the role of
science in capitalist society, Raha's contention that "science as
such…has gone to the devil" is too extreme a rejection. At the age of 10
I caught pneumonia, a disease that was often fatal a generation earlier. My life
was saved because I was treated with antibiotics, a 20th century discovery. Raha
mentions AIDS and malaria as two diseases that have not yet been conquered, but
smallpox has been eradicated and polio is close to being wiped out. Science is not simply a servant of capital. As well as
extending our knowledge of the natural universe from quarks to galaxies, surely
an important aspect of human development, it can alert us to some of the
problems facing humanity. For example, we are aware of global warming, its
causes and possible consequences, because of the work of meteorologists and
climatologists. --Richard Bunting, England I don't get the statement "science as such has gone
to the devil." It isn't science's fault that millions around the world are
dying of AIDS; science has developed protease inhibitors and other drugs that
can indefinitely prolong the life of almost all AIDS patients, but few are
getting them because it isn't profitable to provide them. Likewise, despite
major advances in science the pharmaceutical industry hasn't issued a new
antibiotic since the 1970s. Why? They make bigger profits by prescribing
anti-depressants that you have to use for a lifetime than antibiotics that you
only need to take for a few weeks. It isn't "science as such" that's
the problem but capitalism as such. I also don't think that Raya Dunayevskaya dismissed
"science as such." She didn't agree with Lukács' idea that Marxism
deals with history and not science. She greatly appreciated Einstein's work and
had arranged to meet with him shortly before his death in 1955. As she wrote, we
need to grasp the "'absolute contradiction' in science as in everything,
and it is only the dialectic method that can grapple with it." --Student of Marxism, Chicago As joint author with R.T. Cross of TEACHING SCIENCE FOR
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY I was disappointed in Raha's essay. Modern science
developed alongside capitalism and has changed with it and we need to study the
two together. To begin with, it is useful to clarify the distinction between
science and technology. Cross and I argued that science should be understood as
"the process of explanation," whereas technology is a process of
recipes for making and doing things. Then there is the anti-dialectical nature
of most scientific theory, "the tendency to take Newtonian physics as the
model for all sciences." In addition to the whole question of science as theory
there is that of "scientists and their institutions." Here the impact
of the growth of monopoly and financial capital on science/technology has
considerably changed since Marx's times. Even where not directly employed by
capitalist enterprises, the ethos of private profit has profoundly influenced
scientists at all levels. The cost of doing science makes scientists dependent
on capital directly or indirectly, through the "Foundations." Among
the relations of capital to science/technology which need to be examined are:
the military-industrial complex; the medical-pharmaceutical complex; and the
changing numbers employed in sectors as work moves from the old industrial
nations (the U.S.) to the new (China). All of these questions reveal a dialectic
which is much more complex than any "sham neutrality" and much more
interesting. --R.F. Price, Australia Raha's essay was creative. Smith's "invisible
hand" is now openly the market. The machine "thinking" is not
just a particular machine, but the market. --Htun Lin, Oakland, California In discussing Marx’s "concept of science,"
we should remember that it is the maturity of our age that makes us see so much
more in Marx than his contemporaries. The mid-to-late 19th century generation
got so caught up in scientism that it allowed science to devour the subject. As
Raya Dunayevskaya argued, they ended up denuding it of "its class
content" and "transforming the object ‘Science’ into
‘Subject’." Science can't be decoupled from capitalism. Under the
rule of capital "all science, all intellect and skill goes to the
machine." That’s why at issue is the freedom of humanity and not just an
abstract debate about the miracles of scientific progress. What Dunayevskaya saw
in "the chimera of the scientist who writes of ‘Man viewed as a
Machine’," in contrast to workers battling automation and the labor
bureaucrats, was different attitudes to objectivity for without a Subject one
would relapse into the state or science as the liberator. Perhaps the precursor
to all current tendencies within who deify science was Lassalle. He, wrote
Dunayevskaya in MARXISM AND FREEDOM, "suffered from the illusion of the
age: that science is ‘class-less’." It is this attitude that made him
think that he represents both "the science and the worker." Marx
certainly rejected this notion, for concretely, science was incorporated into
the machine; it can’t be divorced from its technological manifestation. Science can only be viewed as a totality.
Methodologically, it cannot be dissected into "the good side" and
"the bad side." It is not just "scientism" but the structure
of scientific thought, its methodology or lack thereof dialectically speaking,
that needs to be exposed to the light as "a private enclave" and
subjected to negation of the negation. --Raha, California |
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