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481 [lbo-talk] Platypus: what we are, what we do, and why -- rank: 1000

Chris writes: 'In other words, they had no problem siding with larger nations against smaller ones if they thought the former were progressive' Not really seeing a problem here. Marx and Engels had no interest in nations as such, only what was good for mankind in general. Like most Scots did at the time, they saw the highlanders as an archaic irrelevance. I suppose you could argue that Italy would be better off divided into principalities, like the Lombard League did, or that Germany ought to be ...

Document Size:	5819
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Apr 8 05:16:12 PDT 2010

482 [lbo-talk] Platypus: what we are, what we do, and why -- rank: 1000

Joseph Catron wrote (unless I have misread the text-clipping) >Like the assumptions packaged in posts about the Civil War sent to this very >list within the last few hours? (For some reason, many on the left resort >to crude moralistic appeals in this one unique instance - slavery in the >American South - while disregarding their modern equivalents, like the >subjugation of women in Afghanistan. For the record, I find both instances >of imperialist propaganda equally and identi ...

Document Size:	5537
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Apr 8 04:52:44 PDT 2010

483 [lbo-talk] Platypus: what we are, what we do, and why -- rank: 1000

The way I see it, Marx was not interested in war as such, broadly he drew his moral preferences from what was in the interests of the development of society (which he saw as conflictual). His judgement was, roughly, that the wars of national unification up until 1870 were a net gain, but that thereafter militarism was _on the whole_ a bad thing. I might have given the wrong impression: He wasn't motivated by a desire to divide the working class but to unite it, which was why he favoured the unif ...

Document Size:	6312
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Apr 8 03:26:14 PDT 2010

484 [lbo-talk] Platypus: what we are, what we do, and why -- rank: 1000

'It would not be hard at all to justify support for the war by appeal to Marx and Engels. They supported lots of wars by more advanced (according to their undertanding of advanced) nations against less advanced ones because of their supposed civilizing nature.' Yes, it is true that Marx and Engels identified with the consolidation of the German state under Prussian leadership, and took a dim view of indigenous societies, favouring, for example, the British over the highland tribes (but then, as ...

Document Size:	7339
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Apr 8 02:35:37 PDT 2010

485 [lbo-talk] Platypus: what we are, what we do, and why -- rank: 1000

Chris Cutrone writes: 'Is the Taliban/al-Qaeda opposition to the U.S. "anticapitalist" (or "anti-imperialist," in the sense of Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky's anti-imperialism)? We think not. But this doesn't mean that the U.S. govt. is progressive!' I agree with that. But it still says to me that one ought to oppose the allied war in Afghanistan. I am less impressed with Kanan Makiya, who, it seems to me, confuses two separate issues: the first is the undoubted reactionary na ...

Document Size:	5356
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Apr 8 02:08:42 PDT 2010

486 [lbo-talk] Carrol-baiting versus actual discussion (WAS: Re: west on obama and boycotts) -- rank: 1000

> I'm holding out for a contribution from somebody less pithy. Don't take the pith

Document Size:	5044
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Apr 7 11:27:21 PDT 2010

487 [lbo-talk] Money and s*x -- rank: 1000

Matthias asks 'Incidentally: I understand that there have been attempts to integrate domestic production into Marx's overall framework, but I wouldn't know the successful attempts from the failures. Anyone in particular I should read?' The most consistent with Marxism (in my opinion) are Smith, P., 'Domestic labour and Marx's theory of value', in Feminism and materialism: women and modes of production By Annette Kuhn, AnnMarie Wolpe, 1978 and Adamson, Olivia, Brown, Carol, Harrison, Judith, and ...

Document Size:	5231
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Apr 7 09:51:34 PDT 2010

488 [lbo-talk] money and s*x -- rank: 1000

"What was your first s*xual experience, Simon?" He thinks for a moment. "I was about ten. This teacher asked us all to make little churches for a display, kind of a model of a church. I made one out of cardboard, worked very hard on it, and took it in to her on a Friday morning, and she was pleased with it. It had a red roof, coloured with red crayon. Then another guy, Billy something-or-other, brought in one that was made of wood. His was better than mine. So she tossed mine out ...

Document Size:	5061
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Apr 7 09:28:25 PDT 2010

489 [lbo-talk] getting back to Brooks... -- rank: 1000

David Brooks' Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, Simon & Schuster; 2000 was pretty funny, though, wasn't it? [in fact I see Doug accused me of ghosting for him, back in 2003 http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2003/2003-January/002154.html ] His thesis there, if I remember it right, was that the distinction between the bourgeois and the bohemian had broken down, so that bohemianism was a signifier of high social class.

Document Size:	5024
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Apr 6 13:38:26 PDT 2010

490 [lbo-talk] Mitchel's interview with two Platypus organizers -- rank: 1000

Some comments on Platypus 1917 on the LBO list: 'A few of their contributors need to read Orwell's *Politics and the English Language* over again, but the gist is there.' and 'all I get is that they think everyone else is fucked but I don't understand what they're putting in its place'. Maybe the LOBsters ought to invite the Platypii to state the argument

Document Size:	5064
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Apr 6 13:15:50 PDT 2010

491 [lbo-talk] Limits of Criticism, was Mitchel's interview with two Platypus organizers -- rank: 1000

Chris Doss: "Aren't you the guy who insinuated that Derrida was a closet Nazi? " Did I? Perhaps you could remind me of the words I used? Or maybe you are confused. I think I did say that _Heidegger_ was a Nazi: but then his NSDAP membership was never in doubt.

Document Size:	5086
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Apr 3 01:09:03 PDT 2010

492 [lbo-talk] Limits of Criticism, was Mitchel's interview with two Platypus organizers -- rank: 1000

Well, I don't know about 'vapid bullshit', but this is plainly a triumph of rhetoric over reason: 'Hitchens recognized that Ba'athist Iraq's steady disintegration and the emergence into plain view of Islamist fascism ...' http://platypus1917.org/2009/03/15/going-it-alone-christopher-hitchens-and-the-death-of-the-left/ The word 'fascism' in this sentence is nothing more than an attempt to anneal the case for military intervention in Iraq to that of the 'people's war against fascism', or as we mig ...

Document Size:	5939
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Apr 2 16:46:08 PDT 2010

493 [lbo-talk] Mitchel's interview with two Platypus organizers -- rank: 1000

Doug: 'If the bourgeoisie was so happy with FDR, why did they spend so much time trying to undo it?' I guess that like most strategies, it had its limitations (for the bourgeoisie, I mean, it had different limitations for the working class). What made sense in the emergency conditions of the thirties and early forties, later became a barrier to capitalism. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't - however contradictory - an effective ruling class strategy at the time. After all, this was when Ameri ...

Document Size:	5345
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Apr 2 11:23:25 PDT 2010

494 [lbo-talk] Polanksi -- rank: 1000

"It is a laughable defense to claim Polanski was being unfairly treated. He was being treated with kid gloves but even they were too rough for his sensitive artistic temperament." Well, there is something demotic in your tone, here. It is not laughable at all to point out that the authorities spoke with forked tongues. You seem to take some pleasure in knocking down the cultural icon which might be interfering with your sense of fair play. Doug writes 'what makes all this politically i ...

Document Size:	6234
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Sep 30 16:15:46 PDT 2009

495 [lbo-talk] Polanski -- rank: 1000

John Thornton writes: "Not exactly. The DA made him a sweetheart deal (maybe because he was rich and famous?) but that deal was still contingent on the judge signing off on it. The judge looked at the facts in the case and decided not to do that." Well, ok, but Polanski's belief that he had a deal with the authorities was undermined when the judge backed out. I have to say, having seen the footage of the judge, grandstanding for the press, in the recent documentary, does not make me th ...

Document Size:	6134
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Sep 30 14:11:26 PDT 2009