Sahay —•— M-I: PANIC LEFTIST: FRAME EIGHT

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See also: M-I: reality as "anecdote"   (post by Rosser Jr, John Barkley)

See also: M-TH: reality as "anecdote"   (post by Rosser Jr, John Barkley)

See also: M-TH: PANIC LEFTIST: FRAME EIGHT   (post by UticaRose@)

See also: M-TH: PANIC LEFTIST: FRAME EIGHT   (post by UticaRose@)

See also: M-I: "apoligies"   (post by Rosser Jr, John Barkley)

See also: M-I: more "apoligies"   (post by Rosser Jr, John Barkley)

See also: Re: M-I: more "apoligies"--and Ellen Meiksins Wood.   (post by Paul Zarembka)

See also: M-I: A possible apology to Proyect!   (post by Robert Malecki)

From owner-marxism-international
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 18:08:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: <ajsahay@mailbox.syr.edu>
Subject: M-I: PANIC LEFTIST: FRAME EIGHT

Revolutionary Marxist Collective (Buffalo/Syracuse)

PANIC LEFTIST : FRAME EIGHT

Having failed to drive us off the list by intimidation, threats, insults.., Uncle Louis is now taking another route to get rid of us so that he can go on anecdote-mongering. He is begging us to go to another list: He owns this one! By the way, all those who jumped on us for our misspelling of Yoshie's name (we had added a U and dropped an E), why are they silent when Uncle Lou continually mis-spells Zavarzadeh's name so to mock him? We added a U and dropped an E from Yoshie and we got called everthing under the sun. Uncle Lou negates the very being of another human being by calling him (in the previous post) NAVAH and in the more recent one NAVARADZEH. The “N” is the “N” of negation, erasure and terroristic attack on a person whose cardinal sin is that he is putting pressure on the existing practices that are passing as “marxist”. CRITIQUE him! Why do you NEGATE him? Why is the net-left so selective in its critique of racism and imperialism? This is, once more, evidence that there is very little difference between the Republicans and the net-left: both are bashing immigrants, ridiculing the “other”... It is embarrassing to see that Uncle Louis' language in discussing such a cultural phenomena as “Heaven's Gate” is hardly different from David Letterman and Jay Leno... this is the de-sedimented left... The source of the tremendous hostility to us is because we unveil such cyberfascist tendencies on the list... we are the “Heaven's Gate” to Uncle Lou's naked racism and colonialism.

Uncle Lou wants to leave and says that he is simply not interested in discussing theory. This is another instance of the “break” practice that we have already discussed. As far as Uncle Lou is concerned, his “ideas” (i.e. “anecdotes") belong to an autonomous zone of discourse that lies beyond theoretical critique. There is “theory” over there and here are the independent, self-grounding “anecdotes” of Uncle Lou. By marginalizing theory and pushing it off the list, in other words, he wants to keep his own “assumptions” (the UN-SAID of his views) protected from critique. We have tried to up-pack the assumptions of his “anecdotes” — what he takes as self-evidence without knowing it — and shown that in their assumptions his views are identical with some of the most reactionary and backward that are circulated in conservative circles. His anger, mocking, marginalizing of “Buffalo BOYS” is simply a self-protecting strategy. He says he is not interested in discussing what we are discussing: he is, of course, free not to respond but that does not mean that his assumptions should not be examined.

It is the rigorous examination of what he takes “for granted” that is sending him into such rage, paternalism and blind racism. By not allowing an examination of the assumptions that provide the conditions of his and other's texts on the net-left, the net-left protects its incoherence. As we pointed out, Lou and others on the one hand say they are opposed to pomo, but their own politics is hardly more advanced than “identity politics” — tell me about your EXPERIENCE... Owing to such theoretical insularity, they do not realize that they are doing exactly what they say they are opposing. Uncle Lou's attack on theory is an attempt to naturalize his incoherence. The left cannot afford to be incoherent.

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