December 3, 2002:
Analysis: the usual near-left martyr.
I must say that it feels a bit strange to have "who is 'farther to the left' than whom" as part of 'the conversation' (I know you wrote "LOL" after that, but it's still a little weird) ... What criteria come into play in a statement like that? should we start evaluating our personal 'activist' histories, etc.? (i.e. who's spent more time in jail and prison, etc.?) ... Of course that doesn't begin to open the story of my 15 years involvement with [a very dangerous country whose despicable right-wing government routinely murders people like her], which I won't detail in an email ... specifics in person some other time perhaps...
The criteria are not new and are well-understood. Since Marx we've used three benchmarks: 1) attitude toward the state; 2) attitude toward independent self-activity by the oppressed; 3) commitment to one or another class. The position statement she asked me to review depends on specific stances vis-a-vis these standard criteria: 1) the state is immutable, this is why we lobby; mobilizations exist to pressure elected officials, not to build independent forms of popular sovereignty; 2) independent self-activity of the oppressed doesn't exist, this is why the Iraqi people, whose choices will determine the outcome of the coming war, are unmentioned; 3) classes don't exist. The analysis is dominated by spontaneous, that is, ruling-class ideology. Within the left-right continuum it's properly characterized as belonging to the most right-leaning segment of those calling themselves the "left."
It's significant that the only criteria she's able to imagine are the trivial, machoburger benchmarks of who's a bigger martyr. Martyrism is one of the core artifacts of her milieu, with its inability to think in terms of class, and inability to recognize the oppressed as central actors in history. The logic is straightforward. If the oppressed can't act for themselves, it becomes all about us committed types, who act for them. Under pressure this inevitably reduces to being all about me personally. Re-read the message which opens this piece and you'll engage with a mind trapped inside this particular box.
I don't write this because I enjoy slagging people who are courageous and committed and have bravely accepted great personal risk while fighting for justice and democracy. I write it because everything she's ever done through her entire activist life has been wasted. Her smarmy near-left milieu has no strategy, no clue, and no possibility. The sooner it's left behind by people who are courageous and committed, the sooner there'll be hope of real movement.