Dear Ron,
I am about as rad as they come and, like you, a student/scholar of the
mostmilitant wing of the New Left. Yes, the murder in Genoa is horrble, and
reveals the ugliest face of what is in many ways a brutal world economic
system.
But I must say: I would have thought your studies of Weatherman would have
convinced you that complex analysis is more helpful than macho,
anti-imperialist sloganeering. The world, alas, has grown vastly more
complicated than your cookie-cutter radicalism acknowledges. Ever heard of
nuance? Mediation? um, Marcuse, who wisely noted that the dichotomy of the
super-rich and super-poor no longer describes "advanced" forms of capitalism,
and that any genuinely radical movement would have to start from premises
other than those of a crude and antedated Marxism?
Yes, Capitalism kills. But what does it mean to even say that?!! Communism,
socialism, fascism, and likely most other isms by which states have been
organized kill too, if we look to Hungary in 56, Prague in 1968, Hitler for
his dreadful tenure, and so on.
And who is a "capitalist" anyhow? Any businessperson who generates, um,
capital? What about folks invested in the stock market? Are you aware that
labor unions are the biggest institutional investors in the Stock Market thru
pension fund portfolios? And what about the tens of millions of Americans,
many of modest means, somehow in the market? Are they all "killers" too?
And do you REALLY THINK that "global capitalism" is somehow the exclusive
cause of poverty and disease wordwide?
Look, I've marched, sang, demonstrated, written, petitioned, been locked up,
indicted, abused on behalf of the cause. Solidarity and all the rest. But
please, don't use righteousness to mask a lack of intellectual curiosity
about the world we live in (not the virtual world of ultra-left reduction),
or even your own analytical limitations. One of those former Weatherfolk,
whom I've interviewed, confessed that he is now "allergic to dogma." We
should all develop such allergies, and save our precious health for an honest
and intelligent fight.
peace,
Jeremy
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