SF Chron Goes Maoist!
Completely by accident, I caught a really bizarre San
Francisco Chronicle book review Sunday night of the
new memoir just written by none other than Chairman Bob Avakian, leader
of the glorious Revolutionary Communist Party (which last time anybody checked had at
least 4 or 5 dozen members nationwide).
Now, Chairman Bob, 62 years old — and who has lived a
great chunk of his life in “exile” in France — has the perfect right to scratch
out a book and the Chron has the same right to review it.
That, in turn, gives me the right to say: what a
spectacularly stupid and fawning review for someone who is little more than the
self-appointed Dear Leader of a claque of Stalin-worshipping cranks.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that Chron staff writer
and reviewer Rick DelVecchio is some sort of commie dupe. Make that just a plain
dope. His yawning ignorance of the subject about which he so blithely writes is border-line
delusional.(It is true that writing for a SF paper makes this whole enterprise
a bit easier I suppose).
I think the bigger lesson here is just how wrong the MSM can
get any story if it sets its mind to it. Iraqi WMD’s, or American-Armenian head cases.
Down to the facts.
Avakian is, in reality, little more than a cult-leader for a
tiny sect of Marxist-Leninists who worship both Mao and Stalin. He had no more
reason to flee to French exile 25 years ago than you did to take up residence
on Mars — though it all gives Old Bob some manufactured mystique.
His RCP is an extremely dogmatic little outfit that when not
apologizing for Stalin’s and Mao’s crimes is talking down to the “impoverished
masses” in street language. The real specialty of the RCP, however, is to send
two or three of its knuckleheads into genuine grass roots student movements and
try to hijack them. Then there’s the fishwrap newspaper is puts out — The
Revolutionary Worker“”which can be seen littering the ground after any major
peace demo. Now with a new name, just plain old “Revolution” it brims with
ideological doggerel.
In short, not a single left-of-center person with an IQ
above 68 takes these whackjobs seriously.
Nope. That’s the job of the San Francisco Chronicle! Try to
contain your laughter as you peruse these excerpts from DelVechhio’s
review of Chairman Bob’s just-published “From Ike to Mao and
Beyond:”
Berkeley-bred
Avakian’s new memoir, "From Ike to Mao and Beyond," leaves a
breathtaking impression”¦It’s as if democratic capitalism’s triumph in the 20th
century was history’s biggest mistake, a tragic wrong turn from the revolutionary
road marked out by Lenin in the Russia of 1917 after the writings of Marx and
by Mao in the China of the 1950s and 60s. Unswervingly, Avakian holds that road
and is esteemed by fellow revolutionaries as the marathon man of the
international anti-imperialist struggle”¦“¦although Avakian is
a devotee of Marx and Lenin, he’s also respected in revolutionary circles for
his ground-breaking criticism of communist methods. More evolutionary than
revolutionary, his non dogmatic communism tolerates contradiction, welcomes
dissent and demands the participation of artists and intellectuals in creating
a classless society”¦
..Avakian’s
representatives said the author is eager to have his views more widely
discussed but wants to stay out of sight because he fears government
harassment. He fled America in 1981 amid what he describes in the book as a
suffocating climate of intolerance.
Today, Avakian
remains party chairman and is perhaps best known as a prolific, uncompromising
contributor to The Revolutionary Worker newspaper. In one his latest articles,
he says the polarized conditions in America today are similar to those in the
1840s and 1850s, and he predicts a new civil war.
“¦disgusted with
sectarianism and dogmatism in the ranks, Avakian pushed his fellow radicals to
stop fighting each other, think big and stay the revolutionary course.He went to China in
1971 and was awed by Mao’s Cultural Revolution. "We saw truly wondrous
things," he writes. He came home convinced that revolutionary change could
take place in American society as a scientific process..In the book, Avakian
is at his most provocative when he assesses Stalin and Mao. He applauds Stalin
for leading the first historical experience in building socialism, the Soviet
Union, under difficult circumstances. Although he refers to Stalin’s mistakes,
he makes no mention of the millions who died under the Soviet dictatorship and
insists upon a balanced view."If the
bourgeoisie and its political representatives can uphold people like Madison
and Jefferson," he writes, "then the proletariat and its vanguard
forces can and should uphold Stalin, in an overall sense and with historical
perspective."
Is this fabulous
stuff, or what? Y’need a mop to wipe up the slobber from that prolonged wet kiss, comrade. What’s in the water anyway up there at the Chronicle? All these hosannas
for someone who commands a microscopic, totally anti-democratic sect immersed in
the most mind-numbingly primitive of Stalinist dogmas. How does something like this make it
past all those layers of professional MSM editors?
Compare the MSM crud
above with an “amateur” review of the same book on Amazon.com by one Michael Gebert
who gets right to the point:It is sad to look at the pictures of Bob Avakian as an
average 50s kid and read about his childhood and then find what he has become now–
a paranoid leader of a tiny Marxist cult, hiding away in Europe in terror from
a US government that probably couldn’t care less about him, and irrelevant,
because of his adoration of a discredited pseudoscientific murder ideology, to
the political history of his times. The baby boomers, much mocked though they
are, changed the society they lived in in enormous and often positive ways. For
a few, however, the liberation of women, the fight against racism, the slow and
gradual work of making the world a little better within democratic means were
simply not grand enough stages for the outsized parts they wanted to play; and
so Avakian styled himself a revolutionary, at once removing himself from any
meaningful participation in his times so that he could be a "useful
idiot" for the cause that left victims of war, famine, and above all
"great leader" megalomania throughout the 20th century. (Of course,
it is Mao, the least effective and most deadly of all them all, for whom
Avakian reserves the greatest admiration.) Reading Avakian proclaim the
"scientific basis" of Marxism he sounds no wiser than the devotee of
any other cult leader– Hubbard, Jim Jones, take your pick. I suggest this book
be viewed as a psychological case study rather than a contribution to the
political literature of its time.A nifty, intelligent
review in one compact graph by someone who can actually write and think all at the same time.. Fire the guy at the Chronicle and hire this
civilian!
May 2nd, 2005 at 11:34 am
Actually, I kinda miss the Maoists. Lemme explain why.
A few weeks ago, on a friend’s blog, this right-wing asswipe came in and started accusing her of the usual intolerance and bigotry– she had a problem with the new Pope, and of course, this meant that she was evil and intolerant and a bigot and a fascist and… well, you get the idea.
So, while everyone else was doing parodies of right-winger-speak, I posted the following:
“Spoken like a true fellow-traveller and Fifth-Estate columnist.
But, as Mao teaches us, nostalgia is just a revanchist tendency of the bourgeous classes, a luxury in which the lackeys of the United States and their running dogs shall drown! The paper tiger of imperialism cannot withstand the forthright application of the Seven Correct Principles! For only through the steadfast and strenuous efforts of the People, as articulated in the thought of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, shall the Imperialists be revealed as the paper tigers they are! Long live the Revolution! Long like Chairman Mao Tse-Tung!”
Not one frickin’ reply. I hate it when that happens: makes me wonder if the Mao parody was _so damn good it shut down the discussion_, or it just _went past everyone because they didn’t get the gag_.
So I miss the Maoists. They’re morons, but they were funnier than Scientologists.
May 2nd, 2005 at 12:41 pm
I don’t know, isn’t this just a “local activist in exile” sort of piece without regard for his skewed views? I don’t think it’s an endorsment of the beliefs per se is it?
May 2nd, 2005 at 12:56 pm
Marc…just for the record. The Chron publishes a bunch of different regional sections that appear on Friday only. That piece didn’t appear as part of the Chron per se, and certainly not under the auspices of David Kipen, the quite good book reviewer and Chron book review editor. If you look at the bottom of the article, it’s clear that it was – in the form of a book review – a puff piece announcing a local event for the Berkeley local pages – Avakian grew up in Berkeley, graduated from Berkeley High and UC and his dad was a prominent East Bay judge, Spurgeon Avakian. While it was a pretty indefensible and stupid take on Avakian, most Chronicle readers didn’t see it because it wasn’t in most of their papers. Mostly I want to defend Chron book guy, David Kipen from being held responsible for this low level of crap, because it wasn’t on his radar screen…nor on the recieving end of most Chron readers.
That said, Bob Avakian is one of the most ridiculous figures in the history of the American ultra-left who deserves his considerable obscurity, even among his Berkeley homies. And Rick DelVecchio is a generally mediocre reporter who should be restricted to covering PTA meetings.
May 2nd, 2005 at 1:02 pm
Oh…one more thing. Your jibe about the RCP only having 4 or 5 members is wishful thinking. They’re not large, but C. Clark Kissinger – their smartest and most successful organizer – is the guy behind “Resist” and much of the Mumia bidness… He’s managed to glom on to and harness the poorly informed good intentions of quite a few prominent cultural lefties. Don’t underestimate the ability of a handful of cranks to create a visible presence that more than a few folks who should know better take seriously as “progressive activism”. Disgusting, appalling…but true.
May 2nd, 2005 at 1:15 pm
I hate to linger on this, but if you really want to retch, click on the little icon of Bobby’s book cover and you can read this blurb: “His powerful story of commitment is timely.” Cornel West
I really hope that they plucked that clip from a comment by West that went something like this. “His powerful story of a misspent life chasing ideological ghosts in an ultraleft wasteland suggests that serious consideration of Mr. Avakian’s commitment to a mental hospital is timely.”
But I’m afraid that’s not what happened.
May 2nd, 2005 at 1:26 pm
Oh god. I started reading the whole review. It’s actually very funny. Very, very funny. My favorite line on the ideological journey of a very young Bob: “Sticking with Eisenhower even though his parents went over to Adlai Stevenson, he was absorbed in TV coverage of the 1952 Republican presidential convention.”
May 2nd, 2005 at 1:34 pm
In the interest of brutal honesty I have to add the following quotes that I found by googling the “book launch” event in Berkeley.
What people are saying about From Ike to Mao and Beyond:
“Bob Avakian is a long distance runner in the freedom struggle against imperialism, racism and capitalism. His voice and witness are indispensable in our efforts to enhance the wretched of the earth. And his powerful story of commitment is timely.”
– Cornel West
“A truly interesting account of Bob Avakian’s life, a humanizing portrait of someone who is often seen only as a hard-line revolutionary. I can understand why Bob Avakian has drawn so many ardent supporters. He speaks to people’s alienation from a warlike and capitalist society, and holds out the possibility for radical change.”
– Howard Zinn
Putrid, stultifying stupidity from guys who should know better. Are these clowns on David Horowitz’ payroll, because he couldn’t have asked for more useful idiocy from two lefty academic “names”.
May 2nd, 2005 at 1:42 pm
Ah, come on. Many an amusing hour was spent following the antics of Bob Avakian back in the 70s. I had a late night TV viewing party to watch Avakian interviewed by Tom Snyder at 1 in the morning. The little bullets dangling on a chain around his neck kept clanging into the microphone. And Bob, realizing that this may be his only opportunity ever to speak on national TV, would launch an unending harangue with every question. And in the Gang of Four days when Mao was on the outs and all Bob had left was the Albania franchise? Now that was great stuff. The rally with Albania’s UN ambassador. Wonderful memories.
Vanguard, vanguard, who’s got the vanguard.
May 2nd, 2005 at 1:56 pm
“The rally with Albania’s UN ambassador. Wonderful memories.”
Yeah, it must be strange to be part of a grand international movement that looks back on a rally featuring the Albanian UN ambassador as “the good old days”, what with a Peruvian terrorist group, maoist guerrilas in Nepal and a newspaper headquartered at a PO Box pretty much all that’s left to drag humanity inevitably into the glorious scientific future.
May 2nd, 2005 at 2:29 pm
I have to second Reg’s comment. I’ve seen a lot of RCP propaganda distributed in Arkansas. The local indymedia, actually run by a friend of mine, has posts from RCP loonies all the time. I am growing more and more disgusted with the indymedia phenomenon in this regard. Has Marc written any searing analysis on their, er, stupidity?
May 2nd, 2005 at 3:08 pm
When in China I had the privilege of meeting with numerous intellectuals, who had been severely harmed by the Cultural Revolution. Basically, anyone with any education was sent out to boonies in a Pol Pot-lite attempt by Mao to destroy his political rivals. Much of China’s current problems can be traced to the destruction of intellectual life in all aspects during that period.
People’s lives were ruined, and the ruin came down to the next generations as well. A lot of the huge sense of anger in China resolves around that time, which isn’t allowed full expression, hence the sublimation into other, approved areas.
I too saw the article, I think the LAT re-ran it. Sigh. Along with several fawning coverage of a documentary “celebrating” the life of ordinary people in North Korea (thinking it’s great that State Run Radio is piped into everyone’s home with no off switch) or how wonderful Communist Vietnam is .. the LAT has some serious credibility problems.
May 2nd, 2005 at 3:31 pm
Once again we waste time discussing and trashing a oor guy with a few followers who HAS NEVER and WILL NEVER influence any public debate. Meanwhile thr “Reverend” James Dobson calls for the Stalinist elimination of judges! And real people IN POWER are lending their prestiege to this nonsense. So if someone in Berkeley writes a piece that I found neutral, and not fawning, on Avakian, so what? They are not writing laws! An aside: Marc, I know know the RCP now have a slot in your old 4:00 time at KPFK. I’m sorry you lost since we need an intelligent left alternative radio station but you fought the good fight and lost. Move on!
May 2nd, 2005 at 3:48 pm
One more thing. Yesterday Pat Robertson on THIS WEEK TOLD George Stephanolis that the judiciary caused more grief than the Nazis or the American Civil War! What are the odds that he will be invited back on? On MEET THE PRESS? And when was the last time Bob Avakian was on these shows?
May 2nd, 2005 at 4:12 pm
I know…Avakian is a nobody…and Pat Robertson, with his press appearances, Cable channel, hundreds of thousands if not millions of supplicants, is easily as crazy but also exists as a tangible danger in the real world. But I’ve never known anybody who spends their days watching Pat Robertson and I had to put up with a cluster of Avakianites in my union thirty years ago. So I find those assholes more personally annoying, if not objectively dangerous. (Also knew and worked with Clark Kissinger – again, many decades ago – before he went off the deep end. So the creepiness of it all really annoys me.)
May 2nd, 2005 at 4:28 pm
A few comments: Parke.. thank YOU so much for that wonderful rememberance of Chairman Bob ROFL!
Reg: I know all about Not in Our Name and the way a WHOLE LOT of dumbass liberals let themslves be manipulated by Comrade Clarke Kissinger. Ive written about that– but no one wants to hear it.
Richard: I understand ur reaction but u really dont know me very well.. This is pure amusement for me… remember that a balanced diet requires more than broccoli. Dumping on the RCP and Avakian is like falling into a tub of french vanilla ice cream for me! Smacking around Pat Robertson? That’s not even remotely entertaining.
May 2nd, 2005 at 4:35 pm
Forget the dopey and outre ideology…. the prose alone is hilarious:
“…. holds the promise of massively releasing human freedom and dignity….”
(Uh….”massively releasing…”?????)
“…almost as if he were the trumpet of Lenin himself….â€
“Although he refers to Stalin’s mistakes, he makes no mention of the millions who died under the Soviet dictatorship and insists upon a balanced view…â€
Now that last, ladies and gentlemen, is one truly awe-inspiring somersault of logic.
PS: I join Reg in assuring all concerned that main Chron book review critic David Kipen couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with this swill.
PPS: Yeah, Richard lc, the likes of Pat Robertson and James Dobson are a hell of a lot worse….and a whole lot scarier. This is bitching as sport. (Hey, everybody’s gotta relax sometime.)
May 2nd, 2005 at 4:59 pm
p.s. let me join into the rejoinder from reg/rosedog… Yes I know David Kipen and he is indeed way better than this. Reg, thanks for pointing out the regional nature of this piece and reassuring me that this was not in the broader (and still overall mediocre Chron!).
I suppose this was appropriate enuf for the Berkeley edition. Berkeley is no doubt one of the international strong-hold bastions of the RCP! I know they have a bookstore right there on Telegraph Ave.
Long live the Berkeley Police Department!
May 2nd, 2005 at 5:22 pm
“Long live the Berkeley Police Department!”
But Death To The Goddam Fascist Berkeley “Meter Maids”…
Jeeezus, I hate parking over in that burg. For all of their liberalish blathering they have the most ruthlessly efficient, mercilessly vigilant squad of meter Nazis on the planet.
May 2nd, 2005 at 5:33 pm
Santa Monica’s are worse. They’re able hear the little click of the meter expiring from at least 1000 paces—maybe 5000 for the really good ones. (This is not merely my opinion, it’s been clinically proven.)
May 2nd, 2005 at 5:56 pm
Funny that two of the most progressive-to-the-point-of-cliche burgs on the planet have conspired to put as much effort into the development of their Peoples’ Parking Police as the Germans did into their Panzer Divisions…
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:16 pm
There’s an LA-based satirical website—a local Onion-like thing called the LaLa Times—that once did a funny piece on the SM metermaids a couple of years ago. I looked and found the thing was still archived online. Here’s the link.
http://www.lalatimes.com/Issue2/meter_md.html
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:20 pm
OK Marc, you win. My guilty pleasure is the E-CHANNEL “recreation” of the Michael Jackson trial with actors reading the trial transcripts and commentary from COURT TV types. So i won’t begrudge you your “dessert.” But do remember to bash the Dobsons, DeLays, and Robertsons.
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:27 pm
Did I just read right? Cornel West, one of academe’s top stars, not only praised an avowed supporter of Mao and Stalin, and an active apologist for their atrocities, but allowed his blurb to go on the cover of the guy’s book? That’s about as bad as what Chomsky did with that Faurisson/Holocaust denial book, I’d think.
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:32 pm
The thing that most pisses me off about the Chronicle is that when they were bought by/merged with the Examiner they had the talent and resources to put out a good newspaper in the Bay Area for a change if they’d taken the best of both and seized the moment for a bit of creativity. But they stripped down both staffs, did nothing new or innovative and the paper’s no better than either of its predecessors. Compared to what actually exists out there as the typical daily, the Chron is decent. But compared to serious papers, bad as most of THEM are, it’s a piece of crap. They also do the good liberal thing of publishing lots of conservative op-ed pieces in the interest of balance. I think they actually publish more op-ed stuff that’s right-wing or center-right than overtly liberal. That would be fine if they were consistently intelligent pieces, but they’re not. And the only op-ed columnist who actually originates at the paper is a not-crazy-but-mediocre conservative. I haven’t figured that one out. I doubt that there’s any conservative paper in the country that only has a liberal columnist on their op-ed staff and publishes at least as many liberal columns as conservative. If most of them did I wouldn’t complain about the Chron’s silly “numerical objectivity”…but they don’t so I do.
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:40 pm
W. James Au: The blurbs by Cornel West and Howard Zinn are upsetting to me. Well, not really upsetting as I fully expect to see such foolishness. They are an endorsement not of Chairman Bob nor of Stalin… but rather of the wooly-headed notion of “no enemies on the left.” It is of course an absurd position for a sane leftist to maintain– as “no enemies on the right” would be idiotic for a conservative to endorse. People are strange. And disappointing.
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:59 pm
An aside from the entertainment value it’s good for Marc to critcize “real” leftists, lest the far-right consider him in the same fold. Some still will but at least you can pull out the ammo and pass the…never mind.
May 2nd, 2005 at 7:45 pm
Marc – I’ve been an admirer, to a point, of West and Zinn although I also find both to be, as you note “wooly-headed” as often as not. I think you’re being a bit soft on them. I can’t for the life of me figure out what would drive them to hand out an endorsement of Avakian as even a sympathetic figure and I’m disgusted by their rising to the occasion. I’m now way, way deeper into the Chairman Bob story than I ever had thought possible, but in checking this crap out I came across this clip from the intro to the book, which makes West’s involvement seem even worse: “A short time back, Cornel West, speaking to the important role Bob Avakian has played in the fight against white supremacy and in relation to the quest for a radically different world, suggested to Bob that he think about doing a memoir of his life so far.” This excerpt/intro is by one Lenny Wolf, apparently a comrade of Bob’s. Also if you read some of the accompanying material to the book launch, it’s clear that the pathetic morons of the RCP hold Avakian as the newest comer in the Marx-Lenin-Stalin-Mao pantheon. (Marx would be appalled at being thrust into that company, but that’s another discussion.) If this is even remotely accurate (and someone should put this to West to explain himself since it’s so bizarre), I am some combination of saddened and appalled.
How can somebody be as smart as Cornel West (he’s got an incredible grasp of an enormous range of philosophers and artists on at least an academic level, and I like his attention to John Dewey)…but be so devoid of basic common sense/judgement to the point of also being in some sense truly stupid. It’s not uncommon, but it’s disturbing and mystifying.
May 2nd, 2005 at 8:34 pm
On the point about the academic commentary, there used to be a joke in some of the publishing circles I’ve been in (I will spare you the details of which circles) – “just wave five hundred dollars in their face and you will find the devil will endorse god.” hehehe
May 2nd, 2005 at 8:55 pm
It used to be one of the few visible signs of spring in Los Angeles — the Revolutionary Communist Party going out on May Day to try to goad the cops into busting their heads.
It really is amazing to me that a city as literate as San Francisco can’t publish a decent newspaper. Maybe there’s some kind of weekly that’s worth a damn but the major dailies have always been about on the level of the Pomona Progress Bulletin.
May 2nd, 2005 at 10:38 pm
There was a period in the ’70s when the Chron at least had several notable columnists and critics and a moment in the ’80s when it looked like the Examiner was about to get interesting – HSThompson was writing a column – but mostly it’s been mediocrity. We don’t even have a decent music writer anymore…which had generally been a bright spot in days past. I do like our television critic, Tim Goodman, because he’s the kind of acerbic, cranky, contemptuous character that TV deserves. As for weeklies…naaah! Pretty crummmy and predictable. Which is truly a scandal, considering the amount of talent a smart weekly could draw on…but they’re just filler for personal and escort ads, events promos and such. Three weeklies and they all suck. San Jose has a bit better paper than SF. And the Oakland Tribune has become a total joke since Bob Maynard’s passing. Weeks pass when I don’t even open up my Sunday Chron because I’ve picked up the NYTimes.
May 3rd, 2005 at 12:35 am
> The blurbs by Cornel West and Howard Zinn are upsetting to me. Well, not really
> upsetting as I fully expect to see such foolishness. They are an endorsement not of
> Chairman Bob nor of Stalin…
Thing is, Marc, Zinn is pretty much a marginal figure in the mainstream, but West is one of the top five most prominent academics in the US. And he heaps praise on a book that defends Mao and Stalin as great leaders, while evidently refusing to even acknowledge the millions they slaughtered and starved? Guy writes a book which says, “Stalin and Mao were great men”, and another guy says, without qualification, “This is a great book”. Sure seems like an implicit endorsement to me.
All this, by the way, speaks against the notion that Avakian is simply a marginal figure who should be ignored, as compared to ideologues on the right. Pat Robertson comparing liberal judges to Al Qaeda is indeed disgusting, but surely *something* should be said about a Stalinist whose defenders include a full professor at Princeton who is also one of the most recognized public intellectual in the media and in politics, and, well, a featured player in *The Matrix*.
May 3rd, 2005 at 4:21 am
hey reg, re: your comment about the decline in quality of the Chron and the lack of any good alternative newspapers, did you see the latest figures for newspaper circulation nationally? down another 1.9% on the weekday editions and 2.5% for sundays. this continues a trend that began in 1984.
i think your local experience has gone national. that is if we agree that a decline in the quality of writing and reporting leads, at least partially, to a decline in circulation.
May 3rd, 2005 at 4:33 am
Au, you’re really full of nonsense comparing Avakian to Pat Robertson. Cornel West could go out on a 60 Day Roadshow across America trying to sell this book as the best thing since Social Security and Avakian’s importance would still remain utterly infinitesimal compared to Robertson’s. Don’t you understand that even Cornel West’s significance is marginal compared to Robertson’s ? The lefty academics are an obsession of certain crackpot opportunists on the right like David Horowitz, but they reside in a ghetto – frankly I doubt most of their students even take them terribly seriously. Certainly less seriously than the folks who comprise the 700 Club audience take Pat. Robertson is a hucktster who’s playing to the GOP base, is a major force in “Christian” Broadcasting and his protoge, Ralph Reed, is a key player in the Rovian electoral machine. By comparison, West is a joke. West doesn’t get invited on Meet The Press, he gets invited on Bill Maher. Big difference. You’re grasping at straws with this one. Home-grown fascists in the GOP are part of the machinery…academic socialists with poor judgement generally can’t even decide whether to vote for Democrats, much less play significant roles in rousing the liberal electoral base. Also, you play a logical sleight-of-hand in the assertion that West’s belief that Avakian has written a compelling memoir means that West endorses Stalin and Mao. Simply not true…factually or logically. West bears some of the burden of this confusion by endorsing this book, but it IS a confusion that doesn’t bear up under even cursory examination of West’s politics.
I brought this up to begin with, and the blurb pissed me off…but you’re stretching this to the point of absurdity.
May 3rd, 2005 at 4:51 am
too many…I don’t think the Chron’s circulation problems have too much to do with decline in content – the news content has never been great. And it doesn’t even have much to do with people reading news on the internet, which I’m convinced is done mostly by news junkies who locally DO read the Chron in some form or fashion. (Folks who say they get their news on the internet but don’t read the Chron probably are the same people who got their news from TV and didn’t read a newspaper back in the day.) The real culprit is more likely Craigs List being a better source of classified ads than the Chron. It’s hurting newspaper revenues and it rarely gets mentioned when people tout the internet as killing newspapers. It ain’t the bloggers. (PS- Don’t tell them and hurt anybody’s feelings.) As puny as internet advertising is as a revenue base, the kind of networking that used to transpire via classifieds is much more effective and much cheaper via the internet. If the Chron and their print compadres could leverage this end of the internet and make some money from it as well as they provide a free newsite, they’d find themselves moving in the right direction. Incidentally, one reason I still read the Chron regularly is because they’ve got a couple of good columnists left. Jon Carroll, Tim Goodman…and I am even starting to get used to the idea that Herb Caen is dead (it’s only taken me a dozen years) and read his quasi-replacement in local gossip and glib wit (not the same as Herb, but at least not painful to read). That’s the identity of the paper for me. And the print edition is a commuting or over-coffee (well, strong black tea) fixture. Of course, I’m really old.
May 3rd, 2005 at 5:15 am
Hmmm, interesting. I have to admit to not having examined my own personal contribution to the decline in newspaper circulation.
I used to read the Boston Globe, and occasionally the Herald, cover to cover, especially on Sunday. Now I read more broadly over the internet (because I can) and end up scanning the local paper on line. I only read the print versions when I’m in a Starbuck’s waiting for someone and not otherwise occupied.
It is much more convenient for me to do what I do now rather than read the print versions. There is no paper to pick up, I can read on-line whenever I want, I can take a little break during the day even without having to drag out the paper, and I get email alerts for breaking news.
I’m also attracted to the breadth of content that is available on the internet and that I simply cannot get locally. And print versions always seem late. News I read online in the afternoon will first show up in the print version the next morning (at best).
So upon reflection, I guess it is less about content and more about convenience and timeliness, with the added emphasis that I can read much more broadly online than in print (which is really just a variant of the convenience point).
May 3rd, 2005 at 5:38 am
too many…as much time as I spend working at a computer, I really hate reading a paper online. I do it for some news, but if I’m really interested in a group of articles, believe it or not, I print them out. I’m a big fan of the NYTs – if I could only have one news source, I’d take the Times, much as I’m aware of it’s weaknesses. It’s persistent detractors really are hecklers, in that they’ve got nothing better to offer – except more of stuff that’s even less reliable. The breadth of news on the internet isn’t a simple plus…you’ve got to develop more feelers to weed stuff out, get to know the biases and quirks of writers, etc. There’s something to be said for having a base line that you’re familiar with and at least have some sense that you can read at least a bit critically. The internet actually makes that harder, even as it offers multiple alternatives. Anyway, the point I was getting to is that if I don’t pick up the Sunday Times, I’ll print a bunch of stuff out and read it in the kitchen, at a coffee shop or carry it with me. I spend way too much time at computer screens, don’t find reading a screen relaxing, and don’t have any particular fondness for trees. So I’m a print junkie. Always have been, always will be. I actually hate myself for the amount of time I waste on the internet. I consider it a bad habit and a measure of either my insomnia or the degree to which I’m avoiding doing anything productive, am between jobs and directionless, etc. I even started to check the internet a bit while I’m working, and I’m trying to nip that in the bud. Terrible habit…
May 3rd, 2005 at 6:31 am
Speaking of debunking, check out this on the 30th anniversary of the Vietnam defeat [and remember Marc interviewed Lembcke approvingly twice before Marc decided it was politically correct to believe the myth of spat on veterans as victimized by anti-war activists]
BTW, how come it’s a big no-no for Zinn to say approving things about this book [I disagree with Zinn, but so what], but it’s ok for Marc to praise people like Totten who call for assassinations of Sadr in Iraq, stuff you don’t even hear Cheney calling for it’d be so stupid.? Funny how the attack game works for Marc.
Debunking a Spitting Image
by Jerry Lembcke
(No verified email address) 30 Apr 2005
The myth of the spitting antiwar protester
STORIES ABOUT spat-upon Vietnam veterans are like mercury: Smash one and six more appear. It’s hard to say where they come from. For a book I wrote in 1998 I looked back to the time when the spit was supposedly flying, the late 1960s and early 1970s. I found nothing. No news reports or even claims that someone was being spat on.
What I did find is that around 1980, scores of Vietnam-generation men were saying they were greeted by spitters when they came home from Vietnam. There is an element of urban legend in the stories in that their point of origin in time and place is obscure, and, yet, they have very similar details. The story told by the man who spat on Jane Fonda at a book signing in Kansas City recently is typical. Michael Smith said he came back through Los Angeles airport where ”people were lined up to spit on us.”
Like many stories of the spat-upon veteran genre, Smith’s lacks credulity. GIs landed at military airbases, not civilian airports, and protesters could not have gotten onto the bases and anywhere near deplaning troops. There may have been exceptions, of course, but in those cases how would protesters have known in advance that a plane was being diverted to a civilian site? And even then, returnees would have been immediately bused to nearby military installations and processed for reassignment or discharge.
The exaggerations in Smith’s story are characteristic of those told by others. ”Most Vietnam veterans were spat on when we came back,” he said. That’s not true. A 1971 Harris poll conducted for the Veterans Administration found over 90 percent of Vietnam veterans reporting a friendly homecoming. Far from spitting on veterans, the antiwar movement welcomed them into its ranks and thousands of veterans joined the opposition to the war.
The persistence of spat-upon Vietnam veteran stories suggests that they continue to fill a need in American culture. The image of spat-upon veterans is the icon through which many people remember the loss of the war, the centerpiece of a betrayal narrative that understands the war to have been lost because of treason on the home front. Jane Fonda’s noisiest detractors insist she should have been prosecuted for giving aid and comfort to the enemy, in conformity with the law of the land.
But the psychological dimensions of the betrayal mentality are far more interesting than the legal. Betrayal is about fear, and the specter of self-betrayal is the hardest to dispel. The likelihood that the real danger to America lurks not outside but inside the gates is unsettling. The possibility that it was failure of masculinity itself, the meltdown of the core component of warrior culture, that cost the nation its victory in Vietnam has haunted us ever since.
Many tellers of the spitting tales identify the culprits as girls, a curious quality to the stories that gives away their gendered subtext. Moreover, the spitting images that emerged a decade after the troops had come home from Vietnam are similar enough to the legends of defeated German soldiers defiled by women upon their return from World War I, and the rejection from women felt by French soldiers when they returned from their lost war in Indochina, to suggest something universal and troubling at work in their making. One can reject the presence of a collective subconscious in the projection of those anxieties, as many scholars would, but there is little comfort in the prospect that memories of group spit-ins, like Smith has, are just fantasies conjured in the imaginations of aging veterans.
Remembering the war in Vietnam through the images of betrayal is dangerous because it rekindles the hope that wars like it, in countries where we are not welcomed, can be won. It disparages the reputation of those who opposed that war and intimidates a new generation of activists now finding the courage to resist Vietnam-type ventures in the 21st century.
Today, on the 30th anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam, new stories of spat-upon veterans appear faster than they can be challenged. Debunking them one by one is unlikely to slow their proliferation but, by contesting them where and when we can, we engage the historical record in a way that helps all of us remember that, in the end, soldiers and veterans joined with civilians to stop a war that should have never been fought.
Jerry Lembcke, associate professor of sociology at Holy Cross College, is the author of ”The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam.”
© 2005 Globe Newspaper Company
http://www.boston.com/
May 3rd, 2005 at 7:21 am
I don’t know if anyone spit on returning veterans, all I know is no one spat on me. Yes, its true we landed at Travis AFB but we got home via bay area airports like SF International. I shared a cab with three other people. And to get the military discount (half price) you had to be in uniform so everyone knew you were in if not where you had been.
The CHRONICLE never was a newspaper devoted to “News” but a great columnist’s paper. When I read it in another lifetime it was to get the wit and wisdom of people like Herb Caen, Charles McCabe, Art Hoppe, Stanton Delaplane and others. And then there was Armistead Maupin. I can’t imagine the paper without those voices or the Macy’s ad without Caen.
May 3rd, 2005 at 7:45 am
Those damned Vietvets are not only murderers but liars as well. What the hell was wrong with their generation anyway?
Well, thanks to the hard work of a few dedicated college professors supported by journalists and visionary politicians, the ‘awareness’ of these vets criminal behavior was exposed to the point the good energies of their young and impressionable students could be called upon to save Vietnam from democracy in their lifetimes and their children’s.
Thank ‘goodness’ the killing was finally stopped and we and our children want have to live there.
May 3rd, 2005 at 8:32 am
Must be the same Nam vets that all served with John Kerry. They knew he was no good and could tell three rivers away. Never mind the crew on the boat who were there and differed. They’d heard the stories you see. A lie will travel half-way around the world while the truth is just getting its boots on Mark Twain said.
Like many fish stories they get embellished according to need.
May 3rd, 2005 at 8:48 am
“Herb Caen, Charles McCabe, Art Hoppe, Stanton Delaplane …. Armistead Maupin”
Stop, you’re making me so nostalgic I might have to call an ambulance. Though I’m not sure I could read those guys these days with anything like the same enjoyment.
After all, they weren’t *that* good. Were they?
http://www.well.com/conf/media/SF_Free_Press/nov10/hoppe.html
Oh, maybe they were that good after all. Most of them anyway.
May 3rd, 2005 at 10:01 am
actually, jerry lembcke was a Vietnam Vet. duh!
he’s not just a ‘college prof’ supported by journalists. and the irony is,
pity rockford’s inability to read, the journalists in america mostly
believe the myth of vets being spat on. look at marc, for example! talk about naive, he could compete with Cornel West on that score…
May 3rd, 2005 at 10:06 am
Michael…don’t forget Ralph Gleason.
May 3rd, 2005 at 10:31 am
It’s definitely true that the Chronicle used to be an important element of SF culture because of the columnists. Caen was The Great Helmsman, but the rest were also essential to the mix. In those days, I’d prefer the Chronicle to the Times because it was just a hell of a lot more fun to read. It ain’t been the same since…
Also, everything has changed so much that I can’t imagine a group of younger writers coming along who could beat those guys at what they did. Of course, with blogs the infinite number of monkeys principle might just finally be coming into fruition…but more likely the price of bananas will just go up.
May 3rd, 2005 at 10:59 am
My favorite quote from Herb Caen: “Criticize San Francisco in San Francisco and you start a fistfight. Criticize Los Angeles in Los Angeles and you start a conversation.”
May 3rd, 2005 at 11:15 am
“Criticize San Francisco in San Francisco and you start a fistfight…”
Unfortunately, that San Francisco no longer exists.
May 3rd, 2005 at 11:27 am
Perhaps if one were spit on they all were is at play here?
May 3rd, 2005 at 11:49 am
There are multiple ways to spit at a person and what they stand for. Front on, from the corner of your mouth, from the podium or from the pen.
May 3rd, 2005 at 1:09 pm
debunkme: Welcome back steve. Still touting Lembcke huh?
May 3rd, 2005 at 1:49 pm
i’m confused. is dennis steve? or is steve dennis? is dennis a revolutionary moniker for steve? or is steve a revolutionary moniker for dennis?
May 3rd, 2005 at 3:57 pm
I think steve is just borrowing dennis’ url…
Have I mentioned that I really don’t care who spit at who back in 1970. There’s a statute of limitations, for God’s sake.
In the interest of moving the discussion to more pressing issues, I’m going to insist on updating the scenario from spitting in airports to spitting at book signings. How many times in the past year did protestors spit at John O’Neill vs. how many times did veterans spit at Jane Fonda. Now that’s a compelling question with some currency. Personally, I would hope that at least as many folks spat at O’Neill as at Fonda. Anybody have an stats ?????
May 3rd, 2005 at 4:48 pm
Me too. I got threatened with libel for debunking a columnist’s anti-Kerry ranting on the swiftboat lies. He’s powerful enough that I didn’t want to test his mettle. Those jerks were serious, but wrong. Damn shame lies can win out like that here. When I met Kerry Saturday I notice no one yelled out anything about Form 180. That’s a good sign, but just today I got comment about that fantasy conspiracy.
May 3rd, 2005 at 9:12 pm
Zinn and West. What a dissapointment. Especially West. I always kind of liked the guy.
Can you imagine Chomsky writing a book with a nut like Ramsey Clarke? Opps. He did!
The whole exile in France thing is great. Doesn’t someone actually have to exile you?
I heard from a friend that was active around 1980 in LA that the Moonies and the RCP used to get into it at El Salvador rallies. Don’t know if that is true or not, but man I wish I had a time machine to go back and watch that one.
Can things get any worse for the Left? Daniel Bell was right back in 1960 (The End of Ideology).
The Arvkian review is proof that the East Bay is indeed La La land.
May 4th, 2005 at 11:10 am
“BTW, how come it’s a big no-no for Zinn to say approving things about this book [I disagree with Zinn, but so what], but it’s ok for Marc to praise people like Totten who call for assassinations of Sadr in Iraq, stuff you don’t even hear Cheney calling for it’d be so stupid.? Funny how the attack game works for Marc.”
–Dennis P, aka Mr. Thought Police
How utterly depressing that West and Zinn would blurb a cult leader. As long as you oppose the US government, whatever else you do is besides the point to some people.
From what they’ written and said you’d think West and Zinn would see this guy for who he really is. Very perplexing.
May 4th, 2005 at 11:13 am
Oh, by the way, full disclosure, I run a fansite devoted to Hitchens (www.hitchensweb.com) so go ahead and bring it. (sorry Marc couldn’t resist)
May 4th, 2005 at 11:13 am
Oh, by the way, full disclosure, I run a fansite devoted to Hitchens (www.hitchensweb.com) so go ahead and bring it. (sorry Marc couldn’t resist)
May 4th, 2005 at 11:22 am
Peter K, you are truly out to lunch, to everyone else it’s plain as can be that ‘debunkin’ is steve and yet to you because he uses dennis’ url as the url of reference…’it must be dennis perrin!’.
And you seem to have a similar malady as Rockford, you can’t read well. I aaid I disagree with Zinn’s praise of the book or compliments to Mr. Avakian, duh! However, let’s not pretend that a blurb on a book is significant, Marc Cooper thinks that Totten offers ‘refreshing’ discourse on foreign policy matters, even if it includes assassinations that woudl plainly lead to major revolts against the American troops that would make the current level of resistance look like a Sunday picnic! But hey, as long as one is sipping rum in Puerto Rico, why can’t they offer such sage advice. Iraq and the WOT are WW2 after all, why go and sign up as a healthy 29 year old…it’s just WW2 all over after all.
And Josh, Daniel Bell was wrong, the welfare state has not ended class inequality in America, not even close.
May 4th, 2005 at 1:59 pm
Apologies, it’s just that Dennis has thing for Totten and I remember him going off because Totten went on vacation while, you know, kids are starving in Africa.
Maybe blurbs don’t really matter, but I’ve lost some respect for both Zinn and West.
As I’ve said, I think Totten could learn some things from Cooper – maybe Marc will have a good influence. Having said that, I believe Totten is doing good work in Lebanon. He’s probably done more good in Lebanon on balance than Avakian has done his entire life. As Cooper notes, Avakian would just try to *hijack* genuine grass roots movements, where Totten is providing needed help, even if he did once make an unfortunate statement about Sadr.
However if Sadr was at war with coalition troops, would it really have been an assassination to kill him?
May 4th, 2005 at 5:12 pm
“so go ahead and bring it.”
I’m tempted…but naaaah. Or at least I’ll keep it short. I always check out the book reviews on your site ‘cuz Hitchens is unsurpassed as a literary twit. But the rest of it…suffice to say anybody who has gone in a few short years from hugging Cockburn and Chomsky to hobnobbing with Horowitz and Wolfie, who careened from supporting Ralph in ’00 to Dubya in ’04 has earned the right to be ignored on questions of politics. Then…and now. But the site’s a service…alternately entertaining and enlightening, most often in ways probably not intended.
May 4th, 2005 at 5:16 pm
“He’s probably done more good in Lebanon on balance than Avakian has done his entire life.”
Not to sound like a prick, but can’t you think of something better to say about Totten than that…
Talk about damning with faint praise.
May 5th, 2005 at 12:04 am
In the interest of a balanced view of Josef Stalin, here’s a clip from the Salon review of Robert Service’s new biography of the man. Perhaps it can help us put Cornel West’s and Howard Zinn’s appreciation of Bob Avakian’s literary output in perspective.
(By Andrew O’Hehir)
May 5, 2005 | Stalin’s poetry isn’t too bad. It mainly consists of verses in a romantic-pastoral vein that was apparently conventional for Georgian poets of the 1890s:
The pinkish bud has opened,
Rushing to the pale-blue violet
And, stirred by a light breeze,
The lily of the valley has bent over the grass.
In English translation that’s nothing more than pleasant. To readers of the Georgian language, according to biographer Robert Service, “it has a linguistic purity recognized by all” as well as an obvious nationalist subtext. (Writing about the loveliness of the Georgian landscape was understood as a wink and a nudge that the Tsarist censors would never notice.) That poem, “Morning” (which continues for two more stanzas), appeared in the radical intellectual magazine Kvali, and was then published in an influential textbook by the Georgian educator and nationalist Yakob Gogebashvili. As art by future dictators goes, that’s a lot more success than Hitler ever enjoyed for his insipid watercolors.
May 5th, 2005 at 7:12 am
Hitchens, a “literary twit”?
No shit.
I love the way he stumbles all over himself in an attempt to appear extraordinarily thoughtful, in the following (opening paragraph of “Unfahrenheit 9/11″)
“One of the many problems with the American left, and indeed of the American left, has been its image and self-image as something rather too solemn, mirthless, herbivorous, dull, monochrome, righteous, and boring.”
Ooh, let’s parse. Quick, what’s the difference between “problems with” and “problems of”? *Bzzt*: time’s up. You’re obviously too stoopid to figure out Hitchens. (Oops, sorry: make that “ra-a-ahthah too stoopid indeed.”)
Hitchens just doesn’t understand how to quip, for one thing. Example:
“To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental.”
A writer who really knew his limits would have gone for the cheap laugh by writing “To describe this film as a piece of crap would be an insult to crap.”
OK, make that “a grievous insult to crap.” Or maybe “an egregious insult to crap.”
What’s that you say? It’s still not working?
Admittedly, it just can’t be made work. But where does it go wrong? It goes wrong with Hitch thinking that a sentence starting with “To describe this film as a piece of crap” can ever go right. William F. Buckley, quite the snotmeister himself, nevertheless instinctively understood elements of style like these; The Hitch doesn’t.
Hitchens has been so lionized that he’s reached that point of no return: he now believes that if he’s ten words into a sentence, it incorporates no damage to meaning or sense that can’t be repaired by simply banging out more words. He feels he’s Certifiably That Good.
He’s certifiably *something*, anyway.
If you truly love him, you’ll skip over to Amazon right now and order him a refresher copy of Strunk and White. In the meantime, I think I’ll write a cross between Charlotte’s Web and Animal Farm, where Hitchens is the spider, and the pig ends up as sausage anyway. Maybe some perceptive reviewer will figure out that the slaughterhouse is present-day Iraq.
May 5th, 2005 at 10:18 am
You’re right that Hitchens is hopelessly wordy, in the manner of many the “overeducated”, particularly Brits. But the breadth of literature he’s absorbed is awesome, and I occasionaly enjoy hacking through his verbiage to get to often splendid points. He’d make a great Oxford don. But his self-regard has reached the point of no return and I’m afraid his pro-war punditry is on a down-hill slide that borders on embarrassing. Actually he slips over that border often enough that I expect him to take up full residence on the other side shortly. My feeling about Hitchens twaddle since he started selling the Iraq venture is that if you want to engage his argument seriously, read Michael Ignatieff. (Or Tom Friedman if you’ve got a short attention span.) Hitchens is too absorbed in rationales of his own past and the terminal spats with ex-”Comrades” (a term of address he still uses with only a hint of irony) to make a good case for what he’s been trying to say. It’s been observed that a magazine named Vanity Fair is the perfect perch for Hitchens. If Hitchens had real balls he’d have kept his column at The Nation since they badly wanted to keep his column. It seems he’s smart enough to know that rather than try to make his case among the liberal left, like Paul Berman does over at Dissent, he couldn’t have restrained himself from simply turning it into a pissing contest because that’s truly what he’s best at. If you look at his political output, it’s been mostly beating the obvious dead horse (Henry Kissinger) or scandalmongering (Clinton, Mother Teresa). “Contrarian” is an excellent gig for a market analyst, but in politics it’s often just a mask for the unhinged and perverse. Hitchens sense of solidarity is remarkably selective and his idealism is often hopelessly obscure. Even his commitment to his profession is more than a bit bizarre, since he claims he took up journalism so he wouldn’t have to rely on reading journalists. There’s a point underlying that comment, but there’s also a rather blatant – and I would argue unearned – arrogance pasted on the surface. Hitchens isn’t a working correspondent who covers any beat in depth – he’s a gadfly who parachutes in when it suits his fancy and most of his original reporting when he hits a Kuwait or Qatar is little more than rarified gossip, albeit often from interesting sources. I don’t remember him ever doing the kind of sustained investigative reporting that a Mark Danner – or Marc Cooper – do when they report from various fronts. He can be crafty as a wordsmith, but there’s not much there in the way of journalistic craft. Having said all that, the entertainment value is rather good.
May 6th, 2005 at 9:19 pm
reg, I think you’re spot on about Hitchens.
To say something somewhat on-topic, I used to be the magazine buyer in a bookstore up here in the Bay Area that carried the Revolutionary Worker, and I remember every week when the RCP guy would come by and pick up all of his unsold copies and replace them with new ones. Long-time employees of the store would hide when he walked in the door, so they wouldn’t have to hear harangue about “General Shwarzpig” or whatever. It was impossible to have a rational conversation with him, he was such a cultist.
May 10th, 2005 at 10:55 am
Excerpt
Authoring Culture and Mastering Science in the Post-Mao Era
by Akil Bomani
Revolution #002, May 15, 2005, posted at revcom.us
As an undergrad at an art school, one of the main things that stuck with me was a portion of the mission statement at that school. It stated how they intended to produce individuals that would “author the culture of our times.” And this statement really influenced the agency of my intellectual and artistic intents. Once that statement really sunk into my thoughts I made a declaration that everything I’d create, and every idea that I’d explore, would be framed under this intent to author culture. And in order to effectively and consciously author culture, I figured that one has to know and continually learn the dynamics and developments of material reality.
This point is one of the things that led me to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM). There was a certain thrill of actually applying scientific method to social affairs, to politics, to history, and using that in turn to affect social affairs, create politics, and change history. All this fell in line to authoring a culture. And of course, the culture I wanted to be a part of authoring was one in which people were freely associating human beings beyond the social and economic perimeters of race, class, and gender. The culture I wanted to author was one in which all individuals were able to understand and consciously transform the world around them–free from the chains of class relations. So, of course, the Communist Manifesto, Marx’s essay on “The German Ideology,” Lenin’s State and Revolution, Mao’s Talks at Yenan Forum on Literature and Art –all of these works fed into this passion to author the culture.
Yet the more that the socialist/communist movement of the 20th century is genuinely examined, it is clear that there has been a tendency to negate this aspect of the agency of the masses to consciously author a culture. And this is very sad because at its essence, that is what a revolution aims to do–radically impact the way in which a society socially relates as another class rises to a ruling position. However, the fragility and complexity of the cultural arena has been greatly dismissed in the struggle toward a society free from all oppressive relations. Many of the Marxist trends, as well as the anti-Marxist trends, have historically reduced this science to simply a deterministic and reductionist economic continuum.
In that, the ultimate goal of communism is often assumed (by both bourgeoisie and communist alike) to be an earthly kingdom of harmony or a utopia of equal distribution of goods to humanity. No wonder it only sounds good on paper.
One of the most prominent forces historically, who, through his invaluable body of works, has consistently combated erroneous and incomplete notions of communism (who I very often refer to within my works) is Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. No one since Mao or Lenin has advanced the science of Marxism further. In light of the many ill lines regarding the course and intent of a communist revolution–coupled with the very dire times society is undergoing now–his presence as an irreplaceable individual and leader of a communist movement is priceless.
What he has offered, in particular within a summation of a synthesis that he has been forging for decades entitled Dictatorship and Democracy and the Socialist Transition to Communism, is a new light on the science of communist thought and the particularities involved in creating a society free from class relations and all oppressive relations in general. In this work, not only does he lay forth the necessity for and basic science of a socialist revolution, he also identifies the achievements and errors of past socialist societies in relationship to its critical need now. One of the best attributes of his work is that he does not offer “set formulas” to the creation of an unseen society, but raises deep questions — questions that have to be struggled with by broad masses of people.
For instance, he starts this synthesis with the question of working with ideas. This is one of the shortcomings of past socialist revolutions. Intellectuals in spheres of science, art, and philosophy were suppressed, denounced, or unjustly treated because their views did not align with the communist party in power. In Maoist China, there are many accounts, both exaggerated and true, of intellectuals and artists stifled and generally suppressed–especially during the Cultural Revolution. While this did not define the essential thrust and outcome of the movement–which was an unprecedented and liberatory “revolution within the socialist revolution” (including a flowering of mass movements in science and culture)–the quality of intellectual ferment and the view toward intellectual dissent during the GPCR requires further serious interrogation by the communist movement. This leads into the rudiments of erroneous socialist thought, that the validity of ideas should be weighed on how well it “supports the revolution.” Much of the socialist realism in Russia took the character of this proclamation.
However, Avakian combats this “know it all” tendency and stresses the “importance of actually getting deeply into the realm of ideas in its own right, really wrangling with ideas, and having an open mind about what you’re dealing with, and then ultimately taking your ideas into the real world, into the realm of practice and testing them out there.”
“This is a very important approach generally from people in the sciences, or people generally who work in the realm of ideas. And it is something that people who seek to apply the outlook and methodology of communism should be the very best at. But that takes work. It isn’t an automatic thing. Just because you take up the most scientific, the most comprehensive and systematic world outlook and method doesn’t mean that you are therefore automatically good at working with ideas, or that you automatically arrive at the truth about something. And conversely, as we have also emphasized, there are people who not only don’t apply this outlook and method, but who disagree with it–or even detest it–who nevertheless discover important truths. And understanding that is also a very important part of really grasping and applying the world outlook and methodology of communism. That’s the contradictory nature of it.”
May 10th, 2005 at 11:12 am
Sorry for the long post. here is my explanation for the excerpt above. I’m not one to make comments about people who can’t criticize or defend themselves. But plenty of the commenters on this page have done so with abandon and it just begs a reply. I hope this helps.
So many of you are using anecdotes, personal experiences, etc., to sum up an entire philosophy, science and organization.
How is this not reprehensible?
You can’t make an assessment of communism, of MLM, or even of the RCP as a whole by how some individuals might behave. You have to judge communists according to the world they’re fighting for, and challenge them to live up to it because, as Avakian says, your means determine your ends. So, rather than bad-mouth people – criticize and challenge them (to their face). While it may be the case that many so-called communists aren’t critical thinkers, comrades and students of Avakian practically beg for substantive, challenging criticisms.
One of the biggest challenges in this county for a communist vanguard is resisting the pulls of revisionism. The so-called “sugar bullets” that can rob the revolutionary aims and methods from such a vanguard. The RCP itself went through a split about 2 decades ago to shed a lot of rank revisionism and economism. And changing the name of its paper from “Revolutionary Worker” to “Revolution” is a part of shedding remaining economis,
So, perhaps your criticisms would be better suited if they were contrasted to what communists should be like — and you should challenge the people you know who call themselves communists to be more like that. And the above article from Bomani is a good example not only of what that should be like, but shows how Avakian has actually employed that approach to radically re-envision communism.
May 12th, 2005 at 7:17 am
Who’s Cooper trying to be? The new David Horowitz of the left? The newest little yapping dog who runs around helping the new McCarthyites trash and slap down any progressive voices based on who they recommend reading? Someone whose special mission is to slander the intellect of those who see that it is worth engaging the works of Bob Avakian?
Why should people who write the kind of low-level ad-hominim attacks Cooper did here have any credibility among progressive people? Cooper himself can’t answer the substance in what Avakian has to say and he doesn’t want anyone else to even look into it.
Cooper assails Rick DelVecchio for his “yawning ignorance of the subject about which he so blithely writes.†The trouble with this argument is that DelVecchio clearly did read From Ike to Mao and Beyond and demonstrates an accurate, sweeping and even poetic grasp of its contents, while Cooper demonstrates nothing but prideful and glaring ignorance of the book’s contents.
But worse than this – Cooper actually calls for the Chronicle to fire DelVecchio! In an age when “watch what you say†is an order from the Commander-in-Chief, via then-spokesperson Ari Fleischer, and when journalists, academics and others are coming under serious fire (including getting fired) for not blindly towing the ever-more-radically-conservative line, this is reprehensible.
Cooper’s snide, proof-texting, uncritical approach not only prevents people from learning anything new about the world, it also conforms to the “unthinkingness” of the times being demanded by those with the power. He is aligning himself with aggressive measures to cleanse the discourse in America of everything oppositional and revolutionary.
We need an approach that sees the contradictions in things, where people don’t label things, even things they disagree with, with a broad stroke. This, in fact, is something Avakian discusses as key to bringing about a new kind of socialism, in his talk, “Dictatorship and Democracy.” (http://rwor.org/bob_avakian/new_speech/avakian_democracy_dictatorship_speech.htm)
Contrary to Cooper’s flippant claims, this talk sounds remarkably unlike “worship†of Stalin or anyone when Avakian says, “I uphold very firmly the experience of the socialist revolution so far, but I don’t want to live in those countries,” and then goes on to critically examine both the tremendous accomplishments of millions who dared to make revolution and how we can and must do better than they did. What he comes up with is a new and re-envisioned socialism that not merely tolerates dissent, but values and fosters it because he recognizes that no one has a monopoly on the truth. I’ll take that any day over Cooper’s approach toward socialist history and to those who have dared to think critically about it today: “Smash it, trash it, burn it! Don’t look!! Nothing to learn here!! Keep moving!!!”
Further, I would repeat the challenge in the 1st issue of Revolution (http://rwor.org/) by Penny Brown (http://rwor.org/a/001/truth-communism-past-future.htm) where she talks about what my generation really needs from folks who went through the tumultuous times of the 60’s: “To those of you who drew inspiration ‘back in the day’ from the radical society-wide transformations taking place on the other side of the globe, to those who felt part of liberation much bigger than themselves, to those who have since fallen under the influence of the message that “there is no alternative” to capitalism but who once knew better—I offer this challenge. Take a fresh look with a critical and open mind at humanity’s first steps towards emancipation. Seek to sort out the lies and horror stories from the complex realities of bringing a new society into being. Help a new generation understand history and human possibility.â€
While Cooper doesn’t want people to know Bob Avakian, his life, family and friends, what matters most to him, what kind of person he is, his journey from mainstream American to revolutionary communist leader, I have confidence that many do.
Check out this chapter of his new memoir.
http://insight-press.com/insight_img/CHAPTER_4.pdf
Order it here.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/104-7648674-2087139
Listen to his talks.
http://www.bobavakian.net/
Find his writings here.
http://rwor.org/chair_e.htm
May 12th, 2005 at 3:38 pm
Wow, when there’s no chance to take snipes or talk shit, nobody wants to talk, huh?
That’s wrong on so many levels.
May 14th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
I remember a quote from Mao…. “no investigation, no right to speak”. Really, it’s easy to set up a straw man and then knock him down. Avakian was highly critical of Albania, does not consider Pol Pot a communist, etc.. all posts of criticism of Avakian! so read the book and lets get into the ideas. Avakian definitely is FOR dissent!
May 18th, 2005 at 8:11 am
I read Avakian’s book, which is apparently more than Cooper can manage to do.
And what’s interesting is that the reviewer from the Chronicle managed to do the same. Instead of producing a diatribe, he actually took the book at face value.
What’s interesting is that Cooper and his minions have the same technique: slander, exageration, and description by anecdote. So, while Avakian is 1) not in exile, but back in the USA, 2) writing much to criticize the history and practice of what is generally called “Stalinism” in the left, and 3) not a cynical career hack (unlike a certain person trying to fill the Hitchens slot at the Nation), I’m not surprised Cooper can’t be bothered to deal with the real.
The RCP is relatively small. But this isn’t 1986. The RCP, like most of the radical left, has been growing consistantly since the mid-to-late 1990s. Cooper is so lost in the mushy periphery of the Democratic Party he no longer knows what real politics looks like. Some people dream of a world where the people rule. Som of them get organized. And by organized I don’t mean sipping cocktails on a Nation cruise.
May 18th, 2005 at 8:17 am
I read Avakian’s book, which is apparently more than Cooper can manage to do. What’s interesting is that the reviewer from the Chronicle managed to do the same. Instead of producing a diatribe, he actually took the book at face value.
Cooper and his centrist minions have the same technique: slander, exageration, and description by anecdote. So, while Avakian is 1) not in exile, but back in the USA, 2) writing much to criticize the history and practice of what is generally called “Stalinism” in the left, and 3) not a cynical career hack (unlike a certain person trying to fill the Hitchens slot at the Nation), I’m not surprised Cooper can’t be bothered to deal with the real. He says nobody on the left takes Avakian seriously, and then is reduced to attacking Zinn and Cornel West. He must also miss the fact that New York’s only leftwing bookstore is run by them, and the fairly important (and decidedly non-sectarian) role they’ve played in the anti-police brutality and anti-war movements.
If everytime a communist speaks they have to justify Stalin, I’d just ask the “sane leftist” Cooper to justify Hiroshima, the internship of Japanese-Americans and decades of Jim Crow under the leadership of liberal standard-bearers like FDR. Wasn’t it that other liberal LBJ who unleashed hell on Southeast Asia? Didn’t the American prison population double under Bill Clinton to be the highest in the world? Friends of mine had to leave college under Clinton to do workfare assignments to ensure food for their children. Should I hold Cooper responsible for THAT since he’s such an ardent and “reasonable” Democrat?
The RCP is relatively small. But this isn’t 1986. The RCP, like most of the radical left, has been growing consistantly since the mid-to-late 1990s. Cooper is so lost in the mushy periphery of the Democratic Party he no longer knows what real politics looks like. He was willing to support a candidate for president who was both pro-war and in support of the Patriot Act. So, if that’s reasonable… bring on the crazies! Some people dream of a world where the people rule. Some of them get organized. And by organized I don’t mean sipping cocktails on a Nation cruise.
May 18th, 2005 at 8:56 am
There is plenty to dig into Avakian on, but Cooper doesn’t even feel obliged to stick to facts.
Avakian isn’t in exile, he’s in the US. He was never an Albanian shill. He does not worship Stalin, or anyone really. He is in fact the most consistant voice against “worship” of any kind, including the entirely normal Jesus-mongering that we’re all supposed to get used to.
Avakian left the US because he was facing over 200 years in prison. What for? A protest denouncing the restoration of capitalism in China and fighting to get communists around the world to see what was up. The occassion was a meeting between liberal Democrat Jimmy Carter and Teng Xioping, better known as the butcher of Tienamen Square. So, I guess it’s alright for liberals to hang out with killers, but if Avakian protests them we’re supposed to think he’s the crazy one!
The RCP is anti-democratic? Based on what? Life in this “democracy” is for many of us a tyranny. I pay half my income in rent to a fat, lazy landlord. I have to take shit as a worker just about every day of my life. There is no “democracy” at my job or in the economy. The government doesn’t work for the common people or spread “freedom” around the world. The White House orders national news magazines to retract stories and the right is purging the judiciary. But you still have the nerve to attack people who want MORE freedom, MORE power for common people and an end to the horror that Anglo-American democracy has meant to the slaves and colonized. Well fuck you too.
By the way, Marc, don’t think people forgot your hatchet job on Mumia. You are a pale replacement for Hitchens, who despite his opportunism can be a good writer. You on the other hand are all hack.
May 18th, 2005 at 11:20 am
On Avakian’s whereabouts …
some people here are speculating that Avakian is back in the U.S. Given the high profile he carries, I don’t think this is wise – unless he himself or Revolution newspaper makes some kind of announcement, which I think I’d see since I read the paper regularly.
Let’s protect this person by not spreading uninformed speculations about his whereabouts, hmmm??
May 18th, 2005 at 2:19 pm
the previous comments impress me as being written by rcp hacks. I did read bob avakian’s book. It is mostly a rehasing of the idiocy the rcp has put out over the years(e.g the claim that the lapd murdered damien garcia) The last posters used the standard technique of personal attack when all else fails assuming that because one is wrong about one thing one is wrong about everything.
There is a serious problem of anti-intellectualism and a general lack of critical thinking on the left. The exccesses of mcarthyism
the non distinction between dissent and disloyalty that charactarized thre 1950s made all too many on the left unwilling to dissaciate from political cults such as the rcp.
The rcp and others on the sectarian left are good at hijacking peace and justice movements.
At a time when a strong and credible anti war movement is needed a strong and credible left in general is needed the likes of bob avakian must be very strongly opposed
May 18th, 2005 at 9:12 pm
This is very Horowitz of you Brackney…
The fact is that Cooper’s article has nothing to do with advancing dissent. It is all about prescribing the exact limits of “the left” and shutting out all other voices as illegitimate. When people criticize this they’re attacking dissent? Nonsense. This is the exact line of reasoning that Horowitz and others are using to run a real with-hunt in academia. They hide behind free-speech and “academic freedom” as they sytematically destroy it. Now you want to facillitate Cooper in hiding behind dissent while he systematically attacks those dissenting voices on the left of which he doesn’t approve in the most base and contentless way.
I think one of the problems is that you don’t recognize where people are actually addressing Cooper’s points of disagreement. But then again all you can say about most of Cooper’s points is that they are simply incorrect assertions about RCP, or at the very least unsubstantiated and impossible to substantiate.
May 18th, 2005 at 9:22 pm
One further point:
The only people who could be said to have hijacked the anti-war movement are the liberals who consciously hitched it to Kerry’s wagon and in doing so are responsible for the current state of the anti-war movement. Their lack of principles has led them and the people who followed them into a state of impotence with regards to fighting against the war. And as they flail about seeking legitimacy the best they can do is to attack the radical left.
May 19th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
The last two posters miss the point i was making the anti-intellectualism and lack of critical thinking on the left. First off i resent being compared to david horowitz. I peronally regard him to be an oppurtunist and self promoter who does not distinguish between dissent and disloyalty.
The problem is how to build anti-war movement
and left in general that can be taken seriously by the mainstream. I disagree with marc cooper on many issues but i do not think he can be equated with david horowitz,.Do youu really think david horowitz would have endorsed antonio villaraigosa for mayor or gone after james hahn’s hatchet jobs
against him?
I am, very strongly opposed to the war in iraq
. I was attacked on one occasion on the net for this. There has to be some analysis beyond the current level of rhetoric for the anti-war movement to be taken seriously
May 22nd, 2005 at 4:24 pm
To Dromo: Avakian’s heavily promoted video “Revolution” was shot during two secret speeches, one on the “West Coast” and the other on the “East Coast.” I don’t know if it has to be in the pages of their paper to be an announcement.
Dromo is totally on about Cooper and company’s “defining the limits of the left.” I think I’m pretty capable of critical thinking, it’s hard to be a Marxist in the US who isn’t. What’s kind of a gas is that “the left,” that is the activists and organizers who aren’t just shills for the Democratic Party could give a rat’s ass what he has to say about anything. In fact, by attacking Avakian he probably makes him more sympathetic to still more people. Got to love it.
By “credible,” the liberals mean an antiwar movement that doesn’t oppose the power structure as such. We are supposed to accept imperialism as a given, fall in line behind whatever shit the Dems shovel up (from Kerry to Hillary…) and get all Gitlin with a new found love of the flag.
The RCP burns the American flag. Good. They take a hardline against the cold fact of white supremacy in America. Good. They recognize that this state cannot be “reformed” or negotiated with. Correct.
I am not just a “dissident.” I am “disloyal.” It is exactly Avakian’s loyalty to the people instead of the flag that puts him on the right side of the barricades.
June 2nd, 2005 at 12:45 pm
An additional observation:
The level of attacks on the radical left from liberals is in direct proportion to the liberals’ inability to show any coherent signs of opposition as well as their inability to put forth a viable alternative in terms of values and vision. In a political situation where more and more people cry out for leadership opposing the fascist trend in this country, liberals remain unable to offer that leadership. So what do they do instead? They compromise with war, torture and attacks against reproductive rights, while at the same time attacking anyone to the left of themselves in order to maintain the two-party monopoly of political discourse in this country.
June 28th, 2005 at 10:48 am
Cooper says “not a single person with an IQ over 68″ takes Avakian seroiusly… and then quotes from at least one “singer person” who does. Maybe people who read this at face value instead of just filtering everything through the really played out vision of liberalism seem more than a nut. They see someone speaking to OUR lives.
Maybe if I get a mansion in Brentwood and keep a roster of astrologers and culty nutjobs like Mme. Huffington, then I’d have an IQ “above 68?”
May 2nd, 2005 at 11:17 am
Weekend three-dots…
Michael Yamaki, the appointment secretary when Gray Davis was governor and former L.A. police commissioner, has been hired as senior adviser to Sheriff Lee Baca, the Daily Journal says…The Times on Sunday reendorsed Flora Gil Krisiloff over Bill Rose…