Photo taken at Occupy Wall Street
October 3, 2011
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Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
I realise that I am being a bit self-righteous, but I am almost always sceptical about soldiers or military parents (like Sheehan) who, after going to/letting family go into wars, and after things go wrong for them, personally, they join anti-war/anti-imperialist movements. It just strikes me as disingenuous. I should be more tolerant and understanding. I cannot shake the feeling that they are being duplicitous and expedient.
Comment by il — October 3, 2011 @ 2:50 pm
Most of these soldiers join up because they have limited economic prospects.
Comment by louisproyect — October 3, 2011 @ 2:57 pm
The Military Project, an anti-war group that hands out literature to soldiers and guardsmen, will be at the G.A. this week to see if any want to reach out to the troops.
Il fails to realize that active-duty troops shut down the U.S. military and played a key role in ending the Viet Nam war. See the Sir! No, Sir! documentary.
Comment by Binh — October 3, 2011 @ 3:07 pm
il said:
“after things go wrong for them, personally, they join anti-war/anti-imperialist movements.”
But that’s how people learn: material experience and knowledge to change their material experience further (and, in this case, for the better).
Comment by Todd — October 3, 2011 @ 4:23 pm
Oooo, I didn’t realise that my name appeared as “IL”. Really sorry. Anyway, I completely accept what you folks have said. As mentioned, I should be more tolerant and understanding. some background, as a way of explaining “where I come from”.
Many years ago some of my white friends in South Africa refused to be conscripted and left the country, others lived in the shadows for many years. Then a friend by the name of David Bruce decided: You know what, I don’t believe in this war and I am not going to duck and dive. If you think i am wrong/unpatriotic/broke the law – jail me. He went to jail. I always figured he was the most righteous person i have ever met, in Hollywood-speak: He “talked the talk and walked the walk”. He thought, ex ante, that there was something cruel and fundamentally wrong with militarism, the military and what they were doing against black people, and refused to join or be conscripted.
I was never conscripted by any state… So i can’t speak directly, from personal experience.
I also fully understand the social (including political and economic) reasons and the basis for joining the US military. During the apartheid period black people often joined the police force as a way to move from rural areas into the city or as a means of earning a living and feeding their families.
So, as I said at the outset, I think I was being self-righteous.
Ismail (Lagardien) – “il” 🙂
Comment by Ismail Lagardien — October 3, 2011 @ 7:23 pm
Perhaps you want to comment on this,
Would love to hear what you think
Thanks
Ismail
Comment by Ismail Lagardien — October 3, 2011 @ 7:33 pm
It reminds me of Marx’s “On the Jewish Question”.
Comment by Todd — October 4, 2011 @ 1:52 am
I posted this at revleft.com under my handle: RED DAVE
______
Okay, here are my impressions, that’s impressions and not any kind of systematic observations, based on a brief visit of less than an hour to Occupy Wall Street in New York.
(1) The site is terrific: one block east and north of Ground Zero and a couple of blocks north and west of Wall Street itself. The park is a large open space with some trees with Broadway on the east and very tall building to the north and south.
(2) When I was there with my wife, about 4:30 this afternoon, grey skies and kind of cool, there were, I guess, about 4000 people there. There were a large number of tourists and people who work in the neighborhood and a group of about 500 who were engaged in the business of the occupation.
(3) The overall impression of the occupation is very positive. It looks and is very large for such an undertaking.
(4) The occupation itself, remember I’m viewing it from the outside, reminded me of the May Day Tribe demos in Washington in 1971. There was a purposeful, cheerful disorder. There are no tents allowed but there are make-shift one-person shelters (this is an inadequate term; think plastic sleeves with sleeping bags in them).
(5) There was a meeting going on when we were there, being carried out in Amislan (American Sign Language). It was difficult to discern if this was a group of deaf students just temporarily at the site or a permanent group.
(6) The most important communication medium for people there is large numbers of homemade signs on the ground on the north side of the site. People are encouraged to put make their own signs.
(7) There is a media center with a generator that connects the site to the Internet.
(8) There are tables, more like long, low platforms, where vegetarian food is served to all comers.
(9) Unfortunately, while we were there, the only group activity besides the Amislan group was a bunch of dancing Hari Krishnas without orange robes. It reminded me of Tompkins Square Park ca. 1968.
(10) There were no cops visible at all. None.
(11) My overall impression was of an activity more turned in on itself at this point. There was no systematic attempt to engage passersby. Since there is no coherent “official” line and not much organization, this is not surprising.
(12) There was no sign of organized leftist activity or organized union presence.
(13) I was surprised at how fast the whole thing has taken on a definite hippy look.
(14) Through my eyes, this occupation is at what I would call a pre-political stage.
I’ll try to get back there in a day or two, but I work full-time, and I have a lot of stuff on my plate.
Comment by RED DAVE — October 4, 2011 @ 2:26 am
I agree with you Louis, they join the military for economic reasons.
It’s always been that way. My father enlisted two years before Pearl Harbor and was then deployed to the Phillipines.
The way the government treats war veterans is a disgrace.
When my father was dying of cancer, we couldn’t get him into the VA hospital or help with burial costs.
No veteran who served their country should be buried in potter’s field as my father was after falling on hard times.
Disgraceful.
Comment by Deborah Jeffries — October 4, 2011 @ 2:56 am
There is no occupation.
Amanda Knox will distract us, no?
Comment by Doug — October 4, 2011 @ 5:54 am
Doug, that’s what I meant in my earlier post that the media will just shift their focus to the next big story.
And about the Amanda Knox story, I think it’s egregious how an innocent woman can do four years for a murder she didn’t commit when Casey Anthony walks for killing her daughter.
Also Troy Davis executed in Georgia with so much reasonable doubt.
I guess miscarriages of justice are global.
Comment by Deborah Jeffries — October 4, 2011 @ 1:43 pm
And cheers to the bus driver’s union for standing up to the NYPD after they were forced to pick up arrested protesters and cart them to jail.
If I’m not mistaken, I believe they filed suit because they support the protesters and didn’t want the NYPD dragging them into the arrests.
Good for them. The people will be heard no matter how hard the police state bears down.
Comment by Deborah Jeffries — October 4, 2011 @ 2:15 pm
I searched for a “like” button below Deborah Jeffries’ comment. i guess we will call it “the facebook effect”
Doug, with respect to shifting focus. I recently wrote an op-ed piece that was published here, in Cape Town, in which I refer to journalists (and other intellectuals) as predatory voyeurs. The voyeur does not want to get involved and simply wants whatever is happening to continue, and once s/he has had enough, the voyeur moves on, in search of a new field.
Don’t know if it’s cool to start a conversation on Lou’s blog… We can chat more elsewhere. Hugs to everyone.
Ismail
Comment by Ismail Lagardien — October 4, 2011 @ 5:48 pm
Ismail, your comments about journalists and voyeurism are very true.
I can only tell you about my observations of the American media from my vantage point.
The news has become so sensationalized and in some cases tabloid.
Once the sensational story no longer is a ratings grabber or something bigger breaks, they drop the story and move on.
I don’t think most media outlets in America have any journalistic integrity.
It’s all about ratings.
Comment by Deborah Jeffries — October 4, 2011 @ 7:40 pm
http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Why_TV_sucks.html
Comment by Todd — October 5, 2011 @ 4:26 pm
I mistakenly thought the media in America is leftist (which is what right wingers want you to think) but after really thinking about and discussions with other comrades, it’s clearly corporate financed and bourgeois.
Media outlets big and small are corporate backed.
My local news that I’m highly critical of, reported about Occupy Connecticut organizing future rallies throughout my state.
The shithead anchors than do a poll and facebook question of the day what local people thought of the demonstrations.
Well predictably the responses were anti-demonstration and predictably most respondents were from Greenwich.
I mean how objective about the subject do you expect people to be when they’re from Bourgeois Junction?
Comment by Deborah Jeffries — October 5, 2011 @ 10:49 pm
Speaking of enemies, newsflash comrades Sarah Palin is NOT running for president in 2012.
Well gosh by golly gee I can’t say I’m disappointed folks.
Comment by Deborah Jeffries — October 6, 2011 @ 3:22 am
I see you’ve been banned from RevLeft. Shame. I had some fun trying to get those technocracy people out of there (I posted as Wolf Larson and Amphictyonis) , funny thing, at the Occupy Wall St protests we see the results of the Zeitgeist peoples influence on the “left”. Confusion. I had a bullhorn passed to me at occupy Oakland at the port and went on to explain that the Federal Reserve, corporations, the money system and or the bogyman isnt the problem- I said (obviously) capitalism is the problem and the democrat party isnt the answer- that only a socialist revolution was the answer and the people hosting the stage said I was preaching “division” then they went on to rant about a “resource based economy”. Bah…my point is there actually was a point in us opposing such nonsense having a platform on a socialist website. There needs to be unity between Marxists and Anarchists then a plan to move forward; our unity should be founded on spreading proper understanding of capitalism and what it will take to end it- this means long and heated discussions with liberal and the Zeitgeist types not smashing windows or banning each other from discussion boards.
Comment by Jonathon — November 28, 2011 @ 5:07 am
Hey Jonathon/Wolf:
Good to here from you. I got exiled from revleft for 6 days or so, which ends this Friday. As to the Technocracy people, I kicked their asses so bad they diappeared for about a year. I think my suspension had to do with their reappearance, plus the fact that I have been blasting a mod/admin who is a hoxhaist. He has power; I get banned.
Anyway, I think there is a point to fighting it out with these schmucks as they will pop up again and again, and the more we are accustomed to kicking their asses, and the more familiar people are with seeing them getting their asses kicked, the less influence they will have. Ditto all the flavors of stalinism, which will be a lot more dangerous in the future.
Comment by RED DAVE — November 28, 2011 @ 1:02 pm