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Readers' ViewsWORLD IN CRISIS, FROM NEOFASCISM TO FRACKING The Right is becoming very aggressive internationally, as well as in the U.S. In August a collection of neo-fascist groups, the Alliance of European National Movements--which includes the British National Party, French National Front, and a number of others--met for a week in Japan at the invitation of Issuikai, one of the main Japanese ultra-Right groups. They visited shrines to World War II war criminals and discussed issues like immigration. Many European xenophobes express admiration for Japan's restrictive immigration policies. --Anti-Fascist, Chicago Sarah Palin likes to pose as a modern woman, but her rhetoric at Glenn Beck’s crazy Tea Party march about "restoring honor" and birthing soldiers was straight out of The Birth of a Nation. A version of “pure Southern womanhood” rising from its deep and rightful historic grave--racist zombie politics. It would be hard to imagine a greater insult to Dr. King's legacy. --Tim Finnigan, Illinois The Obama administration is attempting to privatize public housing by trying to push through a right-wing proposal deceptively named "Preservation, Enhancement, and Transformation of Rental Assistance" (PETRA). It seeks to sell public housing to private developers, putting it under Section 8. This amounts to a direct war on the homeless. In doing so it would shift Section 8 funds from the homeless to the 1.2 million households who will be displaced, and would leave the already homeless at the bottom of the list, where they risk never having housing of any sort. PETRA is opposed by Maxine Waters, Barney Frank, and others, but it will take a large public outcry to prevent its passage. --Malcolm, Bay Area, Calif. What is outstanding in the way Marxist-Humanists look at any issue is how not to get lost in the "facts." My father knows exactly what were the details of the technology that failed in BP's Gulf oil spill, yet cannot get beyond the immediate cause of the failure to seeing that this is an unavoidable outcome under capitalism. The technical details have to be put in the context of what it would take to stop the whole insanity. An enormous amount of ink has been spilled over issues taken up in the July-August N&L Lead, like the oil spills in Nigeria, but Franklin Dmitryev put it together in a coherent way that makes it possible for others, like healthcare workers, to see the connections. --Technology specialist, Northern California Marx's focus is more needed now than ever. That's what Dmitryev was proving in bringing into his Lead on the BP oil spill the absolute necessity of working out the alternative path of development Marx was discussing. Finding a new pathway through overcoming alienation is necessary today not just for theorists but for everyone. --Ron Kelch, Oakland, Calif. The fight against hydraulic fracturing or "fracking," an ecologically disastrous form of natural gas extraction, continues in New York State. In late July a partial victory was won in Binghamton when the Broome County Legislature, with widespread public support, voted against allowing fracking in the region. The danger is far from over though. Democratic candidate for governor, Andrew Cuomo, with the influence of a lot of Big Money, has turned his back on his constituents and is a supporter of fracking in the name of bringing "wealth" to the State of New York. He is now being met by large crowds of protesters at every campaign stop, and this will continue. This story isn't over and it won't be until fracking is ended everywhere. --D. Chêneville, Oakland, Calif. I am lucky to have found N&L! I think I am also lucky to have found Asheville, NC, which is a small town with a seemingly disproportionate number of self-identified radicals, though perhaps not so much Marxist-Humanists. This town is also home to Firestorm, the only radical bookstore in the western half of the state. --T.E., Asheville, NC The July-August issue reflected what is going on in the entire world on virtually every other page. I read The New York Times daily but there are things in N&L that you can find nowhere else. The writers have sources and make philosophic and revolutionary associations both in the Lead article and in dealing with concrete events. --Journalist, Michigan I read a statement issued by Leonard Peltier from his prison cell that asked the world not to forget the struggle that got him there because it wasn't about "one day, one event, one person, or even one lifetime." It was about a "genocidal vengeance" that had, as he put it, led to the original massacre at Wounded Knee and again in 1973. It was how he ended his statement that was the most powerful part, to me: "The most important thing we can do is remember. Pass the knowledge. Don't forget. Not ever. Remembering is resisting….Free of their fear is the truest freedom of all and freedom is what this is all about, not the illusion of freedom they offer us." --Octogenarian, Chicago DETROIT, U.S. SOCIAL FORUM, ART AND RACISM The knee-jerk firing of Shirley Sherrod lays bare the deep racism that permeates American civilization. On Aug. 4 The New York Times carried a "news" article about art, "wrung from the rubble that is Detroit." The writer implied (1) such art is a new phenomenon, and (2) young white idealists who have recently moved to the city are creating it. In fact, Detroit's third most popular tourist destination for visitors from all over the world is the Heidelberg Project, which got only a passing mention in the article. Twenty years ago Tyree Guyton, a young African-American man living on Heidelberg Street, began creating powerful art using discarded objects and paint on abandoned houses and trees. From the start he involved neighborhood children whose local schools had cut art education from their curriculum. Last week I visited a newer, ambitious community art/garden project, Artists' Village, on the west side of Detroit. Clearly, indigenous Detroit art is not limited to young white immigrants, exciting as their work is. The limitation is the racism of The New York Times Detroit bureau, who persistently write as if Black people in Detroit (85% of the population) are doing nothing interesting or important, let alone art. --Susan Van Gelder, Detroit If people want empirical proof that capitalism might collapse, that proof is Detroit. It is a future for all of us. It made it clear that the crisis is not just finances, but is in production. It's not a cultural thing but a totality that comes starkly together. --Observer, California It was exhilarating to see thousands come to Detroit to try to change the world. Each was committed to some aspect of that and took this opportunity to project what they see as wrong. That is good because in day-to-day life you still feel pretty isolated. --U.S. Social Forum participant, Oakland, Calif. I have talked a lot to others about Lenin's observation during the Russian Revolution that "the working and laboring classes of Russia had gained more in class consciousness in the space of the last few months than they had during the entire previous generation." Today, with all our advanced telecommunications, that space of a few months could be reduced to a week or two or even a matter of days. But I was always kind of vague about the idea. The caption on an article from Barron's titled "Journalism's Next Revolution" says it all: "The iPad could usher in a new era." Again, it was Lenin who said, "The capitalists will sell us the rope we hang them with." In this case, the iPad. The pen is mightier than the sword. --Retired Postal Worker, Battle Creek, Mich. While theory is fine, we have to figure how to get from here to there. In the last issue, a Reader's View from Prisoner, Texas, says it all: "I remain ignorant of all the basics." In my opinion, the basics as they appear in N&L are not basic at all for someone who "has never studied Hegel, Marx or Lenin, and has no access to any library or internet sources." I have one suggestion. Could union people be encouraged to support Union, go to a supermarket that is organized and drop in the suggestion box "I shop here because…" Too often the pennies "saved" by shopping at Wal-Mart mean further resistance from enterprises and further demand for concessions. This is a suggestion that could come from the shop floor. Buttons could be distributed, "I support unions," etc. --Long-time Supporter,Vancouver, B.C. I read a number of left-wing publications that give a lot of information about what is happening but don't demonstrate how to change things. Not enough are discussing these things with others. Dunayevskaya's writing is interesting and important but too "dense." N&L is a powerful paper, saying things you don't see anywhere else, but it's not being used the way it should be. --Labor history teacher, New Mexico As the Marxist-Humanist writings in News and Letters Committees have shown, Marxists who are into organizing but neglect theory and philosophy cannot abolish capitalist production and move into a new society where each individual's freedom is the basis of a free society. Raya Dunayevskaya's book Philosophy and Revolution shows the tragedy of the many 1950s-1960s aborted African Revolutions, which led into today's crises in Africa, just as the stalled Civil Rights Movement has seen the retrogression into today's Tea Party racism since the 2008 economic meltdown. --Basho, Los Angeles Please help support the campaign to free Efren Paredes Jr., who has been wrongly imprisoned since age 15 for a crime he did not commit. Efren has been imprisoned over 21 years. You can learn more by visiting http://www.facebook.com/Free.Efren As part of our internet campaign this month I am asking the readers of N&L to visit http://www.facebook.com/Free.Efren and click the "I Like" button. Please also click on the "suggest to Friends" link located on the left side of the screen and invite all your friends to the page as well. --January, Chicago I think you're a little unfair to Bordiga, though I was irked by his insistence on moving from medieval peasant cooperation to individualism as a way to clear the way for capitalist accumulation. It is, indeed, why I personally moved in 1948 from Bordigism to what was to become "Socialism or Barbarism." I don't accept that Bordiga was ignoring Hegel and the dialectic. He certainly made a sharp distinction between "economically progressive" and "socialist-inclined," so he may have stressed the old conception of the dialectic as the interplay of opposites rather than the overcoming of limits. Anyway, these were only way-halts on my journey from Trotskyism to anarchism. I suppose post-Trotsky Trotskyism was equally a way-halt on the road from Stalinism. --Laurens Otter, England The essay on Bordiga's Marxism in the July-August N&L opens up a very important discussion. What is at stake here, in showing Marx's multilinear view as the opposite of stagification, is in part what the idea of the movement from theory to practice is about. As human beings we do not have to reinvent the wheel in every society and situation. Once something is known and understood somewhere in the world, including science and philosophy, then it belongs to all of Humanity. When reading the essay, I couldn't help but think of the Cherokee, Sequoyah, in the early 1800s. Once he saw white soldiers using written language, he did not have to pass through centuries of development. Instead, within a few years, with his efforts and the self-activity of the Cherokee masses, Cherokee became a written language, which it remains today. That remarkable story is a clear answer to Bordiga and Goldner that comes straight from real life. --Student of history, Bay Area RACE, CLASS, GENDER AND REVOLUTION I first heard the name Raya Dunayevskaya when she appeared as one of the fascinating ensemble gathered at Ida Wells' Tea Room in Dr. Gloria Joseph's brilliant summary of people's history, On Time and In Step: Reunion on the Glory Road, a volume which all N&L readers should own. In that book Raya (via Gloria) says, "If you want to have a successful historical movement for total liberation it must involve all people. There is no such thing as Black history that is not also white history. There is no such thing as women's history that is not the actual history of humanity's struggle toward freedom." I was delighted that N&L asked Dr. Joseph to reflect on Raya Dunayevskaya's Centenary. In her article, "Race, class, gender and revolution" (July-August N&L), Dr. Joseph reflects on the necessity of "intermingling disciplines" in historical inquiry and on the practice of reflecting on who benefits and who is harmed by corporate government decisions made behind closed doors. I learned these primary principles of educational theory and practice while a student in Joseph's classroom nearly 40 years ago. She taught a course, "Cultural Lifestyles of Minorities as a Factor in School Performance" that, by its very title, encouraged me to begin such critical questioning: How do race and culture inform the classroom? Who benefits and who is harmed by educational testing? Who gets labeled "minority" and for what reason? I went on to use these questions in subsequent decades of practice as a teacher. Gratitude to those teachers who lead the way like Raya and Gloria and to the journals like N&L that keep their names and thoughts alive in the present. --Sox, Ithaca, N.Y. Joseph writes that RD's writings are for all races, all classes and genders, and all would profit immensely from reading her works. I could not agree more. Even though Joseph makes no claim of being a Marxist scholar, the intent of her academic teaching bears a distinct relationship to RD's life work: the setting in motion of a process that will ultimately lead to the development of a positive humanism beginning from itself as power. --Faruq, Calif.It was great to find my essay on the same page with Margaret Randall. --Gloria Joseph, Virgin Islands I am currently reading Dunayevskaya on state-capitalism with great interest. As a Trotskyist, I had carried the official line that the Soviet Union was a degenerated workers' state. I was never happy with the term "degenerate" in regard to Russia or "deformed" workers' state in the case of China, as it was describing a state where the workers formally were denied political power. What is valuable in the arguments for both Trotsky and Dunayevskaya is that they are earnestly attempting to apply the dialectic to a situation that had become its opposite, or was in the process of becoming that. There can be no disagreement that the Stalinist bureaucracy succeeded in gradually forcing the working class from political power….Where things become problematic, however, is what our attitude to the Soviet Union would be in the event of war. --New reader, England The title of the book, The Means of Reproduction, reviewed in the July-August N&L, reflects a contradictory relation to Marxism. "Means of production" is a term most closely associated with Marx. Some feminists have been saying for decades that while Marx analyzed means of production under capitalism, he had next to nothing to say about bearing and raising children. Thus some feminists took as their challenge to develop an analysis of "means of reproduction" or "point of reproduction" primarily as a criticism of Marx and Marxists. Overcoming alienated labor and articulating its absolute opposite shaped Marx's life work. Marx clearly asserts that alienated labor will be abolished only when all our relations are human relations, of which the man/woman relation is the most basic. It is important to challenge terms like "means of reproduction" if we are ever to get to a dialectical whole worked out by Marx in the two categories of women and labor. --Urszula Wislanka, Oakland, Calif. The Prison Industry Authority (PIA) in the California State Prison System is the sole resource for imprisoned fathers to earn small sums to send to their families. Now, under the guise of helping a local milk distributor to maintain the account he has had with Pelican Bay State Prison for nearly 20 years, the California legislature is looking to shut down PIA and hand the lucrative contracts for prison supplies and materials to corporate interests. This is going to destroy some small communities. Corporations such as Wal-Mart will move in just for the prison contracts. The losers will be men attempting to rehabilitate themselves, learn useful skills and help support their families, not to mention the numerous local communities that will be economically destroyed. We are asking those who can to fight legislation like SB1130. --Prisoner, Crescent City, CA N&L has been essential in deepening the humanistic Marxist understanding in our study group and our personal growth is apparent. We would like to see a thorough study conducted on the rise of the various historical native/indigenous liberation armies in Central/South America and how their ideological tendencies merged or varied and how they dealt with state power or why they failed to seize it. Keep up your good work, we all salute you.--Prisoner, Jefferson City, MO. Thank you for getting the word out to those of us who do not have our freedom. Many of the things that go on right under our noses are misreported or not even mentioned in the media mainstream But to be sure, you are telling it like it is. Thanks. We have things good here, so far as prisons go, with educational opportunities most of us take advantage of. Most prisons do not even have a GED program. We also get a chance to use the telephone. Finally! Texas was the last state to do this. So I am not complaining or bragging, but am grateful your publication is allowed because I read every issue all through. --Woman prisoner, Gatesville, TX I was glad to be able to tell my brother about the N&L website so he could see for himself that a Marxist-Humanist is not a follower of Communist doctrine. But I am also an advocate for the print newspaper and feel it has an historical place in revolutionary thought and practice that must continue. It is sad that economic reasons have caused some great publications, like Colorline for instance, to go solely to an electronic form. Thousands of prisoners who used to have access to my copy will no longer have that privilege. I know it takes a lot to keep putting out N&L, but it is invaluable to keep in print. --Prisoner, Wisconsin Readers: You can help keep N&L in print! See our Appeal We need your help! |
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