Open Thread

Red Flags is undergoing a change into a larger, multifaceted discussion page. As chance would have it, I am learning web design and, working a lot, don't have time to maintain this pending the new version. I should have posted a note a while back -- especially with all that's happening. This is an interesting time to be a red, and the participation and traffic that quickly came to Red Flags was a surprise to me!

So, to take it more seriously, a few more writers are coming on board along with new features including an improved, nested commentary system, email sign-ups, and a better incorporation of video. By the end of July, the new site should be up. Sorry to have left this hanging... that's why I'm expanding the contributors!

Until then -- general comments can go here. Feel free to post suggestions for the site or rants of the day. See you soon, better than ever.

Comments

[K.G.]

I'm glad to hear this. A user-friendly MLM forum is definitely called for. It's wonderful to hear such good discussion and analysis.

[the burningman]

Thanks, KG.

I think we can do a lot better. So much of the (meager) success of this blog is from the thoughtful participation of folks from all over the country, and even a few internationals. Too many of my posts were just reposts, and I can't manage more than one developed entry a week.

So, we'll see how it goes... but it is going.

[ZACK]

Looking forward to this. : )

[LS]

Looking forward to it! Any hints or introductions on the other writers who will be coming on board? :-)

[srogouski]

I gave up on that last thread because I think it was just going around in circles.

But I do think we had the beginnings of a fairly good discussion about the relationship of theory to objective reality here.

http://burning.typepad.com/burningman/2006/05/battle_cry_for_.html#comment-18762022

I don't think it's as simple as privilaging theory over empirical reality or empirical reality over theory. I think they have a complex interaction that can go off the rails in the typically liberal way (just responding to events haphazardly) or the way it did in that thread below (just repeating chapter and verse from the marxist classics without attempting to see how they apply to history, the reality on the ground).

The best theorists and empirical scientists (Darwin, Freud, even Marx) rewrite theory according to the way they perceive reality anyway. Marx was a Hegalian but he certainly didn't stop at Hegal.

The reason I like Bob Avakian (as opposed to his "followers" and as opposed to his detracters) is that he popularizes a certain kind of Marxist outlook on the world that I don't think is peculiar to him. But what is peculiar to him is that in some ways he combines popularizing Marxism with practice, with the political situation on the ground.

This doesn't mean he's always right (he wouldn't claim this)and some of his followers are probably not so well read in the Marxist classics as they should (which leads them to think that Avakian invented some of the stuff that's out there in other forms). But it hardly makes the RCP a cult either.

[What's up Nepal?]

Open thread...

Am I the only person who has noticed that the RCP's newspaper is covering Nepal even less than the mainstream press?

What's up with that?

Why don't they have a reporter there now? The borders are open, prisoners are being released, and this is the most exciting time for the international communist movement in decades.

The Maoists are joining the government in Nepal in a position of strength, it would appear. What's up with that?

For a group that says they aren't afraid of the "truth" -- the RCP sure spends a lot of time NOT talking about major events. Venezuela, Bolivia, Mexico. Nepal? WTF...

Nothing on India, either.

Maybe they aren't properly reverential towards the most important man in the universe, the living embodiment of science, the enlightenment, the whole history of communism despite his failure to build an organization beyond those who get all hysterical over his importance but can't even explain why. "No, he IS REALLY IMPORTANT."

Thanks, I heard that one. I'd rather not "wrangle" over it.

I'm starting to think that they are blind to everything in the world not directly related to his latest party pronouncement. Maybe they should just post another picture of Avakian and say how important he is for saying how important he is.

Get with it already! Pretty frsutrating stuff. You want to be the vanguard? Then get with it already and stop wasting your time demanding radicals get all hot and bothered over your Avakian cult.

If the RCP can't run a news service, then I hope you develop this site to run reporting.

I would donate money to something like that.

Why am I ranting? Because we need to get it together and it's almost like you all don't even want that. Like we have to wait for people to think Avakian is a savior in order to be communists.

What a fucking waste. I don't need Bob Avakian to tell me communism is important, or that a cult of personality is necessary or that it science is good or that we don't want to create a police state. I already got that, thanks.

Communists have no saviors, condescending or otherwise.

If the RCP can't be bothered to report on the insurgency in Nepal -- what is up with that? I mean they have had literally nothing about developments in Nepal for months -- the very months where the revolution appears headed for victory, on very favorable terms -- with mass popular support, with the "new synthesis" the RCP appears to agree with.

Oh, excpet the Nepalese DID make a statement that the cult of personality is a major mistake.

Maybe that's it, huh? Won't read about that in Revolution...

[What's up Nepal?]

I shouldn't have written that. I don't want to have the cult discussion yet again.

But Jesus H. Christ!

What the fuck?

At what point do the partisans in the only revolutoinary communist group in this country recognize that they are fucking up big time and that cultism is the opposite of Marxism?

It doesn't work. It wouldn't be good if it did. Here we are in the middle of a protracted poltiical crisis and you insist that promoting a cult of personality is a dividing line issue on whether people can be active communists in your ranks.

STOP IT.

Just another letter to the void, I guess.

I can't help getting angry. The waste of it is killing me, killing our chance. I haven't participated in the long Avakian arguments here so let me say what just about everyone else has said: I don't know a single person who has encountered the Bob Avakian promotional machine who doesn't think it's 1) creepy, 2) cultish, 3) stupid, and for your purposes, 4) so outlandishly stupid that they can't take you seriously even enough to look into what Avakian actually says.... because what Avakian trains his followers to do is equate his cult of personality with the very intention to make revolution in this country.

That's not Marxism, not Leninism and not Maoism.

It's cultism. It has to stop.

[srogouski]

Now here we have a perfect example of someone not confronting empircal evidence and arguing from his own a priori biases.

"I don't know a single person who has encountered the Bob Avakian promotional machine who doesn't think it's 1) creepy, 2) cultish, 3) stupid, and for your purposes, 4) so outlandishly stupid that they can't take you seriously even enough to look into what Avakian actually says"

He claims not only to know every person who's ever run into the RCP but also what ever person who's ever run into the RCP thinks.

What he means to say is that every person in his little circle thinks the same way (frightening when you think about it) about the RCP.

In other words, he's projecting the groupthink in his own organization onto the RCP.

And that's Freud, not Bob Avakian.

[a comment]

i think the issue is truth.

Let's just take the example of Peru. Would it be nice to have regular reporting? Yes. But what would/should a communist newspaper report on the PW in Peru?

It's not as if "they are not reporting, so they must be ignoring."

There is a methodological issue:

Reporting (in a c. newspaper) is not a matter of "just the facts" -- exactly because truth is not simply an aggregation of "facts." In fact, it requires (and the people need) thorough-going C. analysis.

When the coup happened in China, these folks didn't "report on it" for two years.

And their reporting on Nepal has never been "weekly updates" digested from the (unreliable) mainstream press.

Your whole complaint is rooted in a h ouse of cards, whipped up to hysteria.

(And the issue in the importance of BA is rooted in the fact that some issues are crucial for victory. Because some issues are "the most important in the world," those who fight for a clear, correct and advanced possition on those cardinal matters have a crucial importance. Think about it.)

[srogouski]

"Reporting (in a c. newspaper) is not a matter of "just the facts" -- exactly because truth is not simply an aggregation of "facts." In fact, it requires (and the people need) thorough-going C. analysis."

I don't know if I agree with this. There are times when you want to get "the facts" out as quickly as possible without subjecting it to analysis (Sabra and Shatila, election fraud in Ohio, civilian casualties in Iraq).

[srogouski]

But I guess I will admit to a certain utilitarian bias when looking at statements like this:

"That's not Marxism, not Leninism and not Maoism."

In a way, who cares? Who cares if a group conforms to what some books on your self say is the proper "ism"?

I look a lot more at how effective that group is in leading people in the direction that I more or less see them want to go (and that direction in my case has been heavily influence by Marxism) and how the people in that group treat one another.

In both cases, I've seen the RCP peform better than most Marxist groups I've run into and they certainly treat one another better than most of the social democrats/moveon.org liberals I know.

[a comment]

take the example of "sabra and shatila" --

were "the facts" separate from analysis?

Who after all killed these people? The Maronists? The falange?

Or was an analysis necessary for your "get the facts out as quickly as possible" NOT to be disinformation?

Election fraud in Ohio: Yes, that was an urgent matter (and there ARE urgent matters constantly surrounding us). But imagine if the "facts" about the election fraud were separated from an analysis (of elections, of the system, of the danger of the Christian fascists, an analysis of Black national oppression)?

In fact, the coup in china (however urgent it was, however world historic it was, and it WAS!) could not be reported (i.e. it could not be a matter of "get the facts out as quickly as possible") since thos "facts" were not lying around like pebbles on a beach. In fact, the truth about this coup required a profound, penetrating, controversial analysis.

The new york times rushes to get out "the facts as quickly as possible" about "civilian casualties in Iraq." Uh, ok. But what meaning does that have (in the context of THEIR analysis)? And are these then "the facts" -- or are they profoundly misleading analyses studded with "factoids" used to construct a false picture?

[srogouski]

Well you've identified part of the problem:

"The new york times rushes to get out "the facts as quickly as possible" about "civilian casualties in Iraq."

No communist newspaper can compete with the NY Times or the AP in terms of resources.

I have to confess to not knowing much at all about Iraq but I will say that I did first learn about the immigrant movement back in April through "Revolution". They were following the threads of it coming together in a way I didn't see the mainstream press (or any of the left/liberal blogs like the Daily Kos).

So when that huge demo in LA hit, it didn't entirely suprise me.

FWIW, I'd rather see good original reporting on issues you do have the resources to talk about then rehashed political lines/opinions on ones you can't.

Most of the blogosphere suffers from this syndrome, too much opinion not enough hard reporting.

[srogouski]

Sorry that's to "not knowing much about Nepal".

I guess I don't (really) know much about Iraq either though.

[a comment]

"In both cases, I've seen the RCP peform better than most Marxist groups I've run into and they certainly treat one another better than most of the social democrats/moveon.org liberals I know."

I have seen such comments here over and over. And each time i find myself stuttering.

Look: you can't evaluate political organizations by interpresonal process. That whole method, that whole habit, is really an expression of "the movement is everything, the final aim is nothing."

You can't even really evaluate "how they treat each other" UNLESS you think of that treatment IN LIGHT OF THE FINAL OBJECTIVE!

We are not into building a comfortable niche, a small mutually friendly subculture. We are not about "treating each other well" (by what standards? Perhaps we sometimes need to treat "each other" harshly! It depends.)

We are not kantian humanists -- guided by a humanist imperative.

No, all these things (and more importantly the political currents themselves need to be judged by line -- meaning, fundamentally, by whether they provide a living link between this moment and the final goal of classless society.)

You can't judge political organizations in an interpersonal "slice of time" way: i.e. the sparts are obnoxious and leech of the meetings of others, the CP hides who they are, the circle A's are frustrating to talk to, on and on. These are micro-issues, that take their source and get their meaning only in how they connect with the final goal (just as our morality, including interpersonal morality, also needs to be derived from that final goal -- both in what it represents, and in what it takes to get there.)

That comes out quite strongly in the whole obsessive non-discussion of the way BA should or is treated. Some "just don't like it" -- and separate those views from line and truth. "I don't like it if a leader is promoted as rare and unique." Well, motherfucker, what happens if he IS (objectively) rare and unique? What if he is literally unique in fighting for something crucial (literally of crucial importance for whether the fate of humanity -- which is hanging by a thread -- goes to liberation, or to more generations of madness in various stripes)?

Doesn't that matter? Or shouldn't the truth about this be central to the discussion -- not your personal feelings about how people should treat (and refer to) each other?

[srogouski]

Re:

"Look: you can't evaluate political organizations by interpresonal process."

I'd change that to "you can't evaluate a political organization SOLELY by interpersonal process".

But anybody who doesn't at least consider this part of a political group is either a masochist or delusional. Just because you have the "right line" doesn't give you the right to be a jerk (or worse).

Of course you consider theory, but you don't completely close yourself off to everything in the "real world" (quote obviously) and bury yourself in some set of definitions of what's really "Marxist" and what's not and ignore everything else.

That's religion, not politics.

[a comment]

"Just because you have the "right line" doesn't give you the right to be a jerk (or worse)."

actually it really depends.

Sometimes the van shows up and says "conditions h ave changed, you are either down with this -- a, b and c -- or else, despite intentions and history you will find yourself on the wrong side."

Look at history.

Rev is not a dinner party.

And it is not like finding a mate, where you find yourself wondering if you will still feel snuggly in ten years.

This is not about you, or about what makes you feel comfortable. It just isn't.
\
And (as i'm sure you see) the definition of "being a jerk" is highly subjective -- and the world (and the so-called "left") is full of people who think c's as a whole are "jerks." In fact it is a bi-product of relativism that putting forward that certain ideas are true (and even "correct") is seen as inherently jerky (and even totalitarian) in all kinds of circles.

Should an organization say: "the individual is subordinate to the organization"? Should it say "sacrifice is the principle aspect of discipline"?

How would YOU evaluate such questions -- if NOT on the basis of line and final aims? And what is left to evaluate it on, other than feelings and views SEPARATED from the final aims (and inevitably reflecting OTHER AIMS.)

[srogouski]

Re:

It's not "only" about me.

On the other hand, since politics is at least partly the art/science of people relating to one another, you can't totally dismiss how individuals of a political tendency act towards one another either.

I think Beethoven wrote the Appassionata without ever having performed it or tried (the technology of the day was too primitive).

But not everybody's Beethoven. Imagine someone trying to get a job at Microsoft and not knowing how to change a video card in a PC. True he'd be getting hired as a software engineer and not a bench tech but the fact that he's not able to relate to concrete reality probably says something about his ability to design software.

As to the question of how people act during a revolution, well, there's a huge difference between how I'm going to relate to people in a relatively peaceful environment and how I'm going to relate to them in the middle of a guerilla war. If a fireman didn't distinguish between he he acted on a burning roof and how he acted at dinner with his wife you'd think he was insane.

"Get the fucking hose up here now" is perfectly acceptle.

"Cut the fucking turky now" is probably not.

[a comment]

"you can't totally dismiss how individuals of a political tendency act towards one another either."

of course you can't "totally dismiss" this. And i don't.

My point is that people (including here, repeatedly) discuss political groups the way they used to discuss various cliques in junior high (are they cool? are they too cool? are they cruel? are they aloof? are they a place i could find a home? are they my kind of people?)

It is totally perceptual. It is "in the moment." It is a method that severs the actions of a party (which obvious matters) from the discussion of its aims.

It is wrong to discuss "i like how they are" APART FROM "i like where they are going."

It is (i repeat) an expression of the most notorious and deadly dictum: "movement is everything, final aim is nothing."

And it is rampant. It is a legacy from livestyle anarchism and from left forms of religion and their common and fundamentally-reformist assumptions ("we are creating the new world here in our human community").

Is left politics "at least partly" in how people relate to each other? Sure, there is organizational line, there is style. But what does "partly" mean? Which part?

These things concentrate and express general line (epistemology, the basic questions of "for what, and for whom").

For example: is coehersion sometimes necessary in a rev movement? Including coersion of activists and the masses? How does that work? How do you evaluate that?

And to respond to your closing analogy: It is often true (and it is true now!!) that many people are siting in a fire, and yet are acting as if it is dinner-as-usual.

If it were obvious when we are in the middle of a fire (with time running out) and when we are in a "relatively peaceful situation" -- then this discussion would not be necessary.

Do you think we are "in a relatively peaceful environment" -- well, that's the issue isn't it. And the fact is there is "uneven development" where (inherently, as a law of history) only a small minority see the possibilities and dangers (at first). And they need to be intense, passionate, driven, obsessed, and very convincing -- to do what needs doing. Does that mean that some will see them as "jerks" or "creepy" or "cultish" -- you bet. Chaulk such charges up to to the arrogance and willful ignorance of the stubbornly complacent and self-blinded.

[srogouski]

Re:

"Do you think we are "in a relatively peaceful environment" -- well, that's the issue isn't it."

No. But that doesn't necessarily dictate how I'm going to respond. A 39 year old point guard in the NBA is not going to have a lot more chances to win a ring, but, ironically, the best way for him to win that ring might just be to convince himself he has all the time in the world.

Similarly (and you might want to read Orwell's "Inside the Whale") as a relatively prosperous white American, my immediate situation isn't as desperate as an immigrant's, let alone a Palestinian living in the Gaza Strip. So ironically, the most constructive approach I might be able to take is to act as though I were living in a relatively peaceful situation.

As far as "objective truth" and the interpersonal relationships of a particular group go, it's not objective truth unless it can be independently verified.

If Avakian is the world historical figure some of his followers say and yet these same followers act like jerks, I could still walk away and not contradict the desire to find objective truth. If what he's saying is true, I can discover the same thing myself.

Darwin and Wallace came up with the theory of natural selection simultaneously.

Nietzche and Dostoevsky came up with many of the same ideas, even though they never met.

If what Bob Avakian, or Burningman, or Sunsara Taylor or you or Noam Chomsky or whoever says something I agree with, then I can come up with the same truth myself.

Where you can't do something like this is where we've discussed above, in terms of hard reporting (re the NY Times/AP).

I can't simultaneously be in Nepal, New York, and Iraq. I have to depend upon someone else. I can't be an expert in everything.

But what I can do is find another expert/specialist if the one I'm using turns out to be unethical.

[a comment]

we can't proceed from self. The issue is not "where are you, stan, at... how comfortable are you?"

The issue is "where is humanity at, and what needs to be done?"

And there is no reason why all of us (you, me all of us) can't think in terms of humanity, not in terms of self.

You write: "A 39 year old point guard in the NBA is not going to have a lot more chances to win a ring, but, ironically, the best way for him to win that ring might just be to convince himself he has all the time in the world....So ironically, the most constructive approach I might be able to take is to act as though I were living in a relatively peaceful situation."

I'm not sure I understand you... but it sounds like the ultimate in instrumentalist thinking -- i.e. "it does not matter if my ideas are true. False ideas may motivate me (or the masses) so what is wrong with deception and self deception?"

In fact, the best way to do something as complex as rev is to be clear thinking. To actually grasp the actual situation.

And that is why a scientific outlook matters.

It is very dangerous to evaluate ideas in terms of "do they motivate people to do what is needed?" Becuase that process inherently (a) leads to deception, (b) is inherently short-sighted, and (c) abdicates and counter-acts the truly historic task of enabling people broadly to "know things to change things." Without a scientific approach, the masses cannot and will not emancipate themselves -- even if various manipulation and hype "seems to work" in the short term.

"it's not objective truth unless it can be independently verified."

Actually, it is objectively true if it corresponds with reality. Some truths can be "independently verified" (and some can't). (Example: I was just thinking about a daisy. That is objectively true, but will never be independently verified.)

This standard (independent verification) is a wrong approach to truth -- because it is a relativistic argument (where truth becomes a collective hunch, not something measured against objective reality.)

"If what he's saying is true, I can discover the same thing myself"

Perhaps. But perhaps not. There is uneven development. Repeatedly in history people (including rev leaders) have concentrated things in ways that are unique. It is not possible for each of us to "be an einstein." What einstein discovered is objectively knowable. There are no inherent obstacles to you or me discovering this independently, or verifying it -- but that does not mean that we (as individuals) can or will.

[srogouski]

Re:

"If what he's saying is true, I can discover the same thing myself"

Perhaps. But perhaps not."

But what happens here is that you open the dialog up to identity politics.

"It's a black thing. You wouldn't understand."

Well, I certainly support blacks in their struggle against the government but is there some truth about oppression and police brutality that's true but that only a black man can understand (and I can't)?

Re:

"Perhaps. But perhaps not. There is uneven development. Repeatedly in history people (including rev leaders) have concentrated things in ways that are unique. It is not possible for each of us to "be an einstein."

In terms of politics, I don't know if you can accomplish anything unless a lot of people are on the same path simultaneously.

I know, for example, that there are a lot of people who want to see Bush driven out of office and who oppose the war in Iraq but they tend to fall short in one way or the other.

"Support the troops but not the war." Well, not supporting the war is true but you can't support the troops at the same time.

But it still gets halfway there and you need a lot of people struggling towards the truth for a political leader to be relelvent.

This is in contrast to genetics, for example, where Mendel I believe invented the study of genetics years before it was any use to anybody.

[the burningman]

Ya'll just love arguing. That's why I love you.

I'm off to enjoy a nice summer concert.

Note: just because Revolution (the paper) doesn't run a blog on Nepal doesn't mean it isn't being covered.

One thing I respected for a long time was the way the RCP doesn't jump guns in terms of analysis. They don't have some hotline to the Himalayas and this informational sobriety is one of the reasons I trust what they do say.

In any case, for those looking for information about Nepal, sheck cpnm.org... they do speak for themselves, and quite well at that.

--------

In other news, upholding science doesn't make you scientific.

The RCP's argument with relativism is all well and good, but there's a huge leap from that to acting like Avakian is a miracle. All the more so when the blind still can't see and the crippled still can't walk.

But, this is some well-covered terrain.

Please post all Avakiana over at the thread where it's been hashed:

http://burning.typepad.com/burningman/2006/02/the_party_line_.html#comments

Surprise me.

Tell me something I've never heard and motivate me to expedite the new site.

[the burningman]

To "a comment"

Show a little naming creativity so discussions can be followed.

Off to see M'shelle N'dgeocello (or however you spell her name!). I love a good bass.

[Bill]

Will the new site feature content that is not related to arguing about the RCP and Bob Avakian?

That would be cool. I'd like to be a part of THAT!