Meaning no disrespect, but that would be a good way of retreating from previously held positions without actually admitting it. It’s what Foucault did. Having most vociferously supported Khomeini’s revolution with the utmost faith in the compatibility between Islam and democracy, he went to Iran just after Khomeini took power. He witnessed the mass executions of communists and the brutal repression of the anti-fundamentalist citizenry. After which he went home to paris and fell silent about the subject either of Iran, or Islam..

Good luck with your other endeavours.

What are your thoughts now about Hizzballa being a force which your kind of Leftism can do business with?

I’m terribly curious.

First is quite simple, a ‘methodology’ suggested by Michael Hardt in the recent Upping the Anti, which I’ll paraphrase as: in evaluating a given analysis, there are two questions. One is simply is the analysis accurate, and the second is: What does it mean for resistance, how it will or should it effect resistance and how we participate in? Whether or not it leads to effective resistance is also important in evaluating the usefulness or ‘correctness’ of the analysis, not _only_ it’s apparent objective truth.

The second line of thought I have is a way of thinking about things that may seem obvious to some, and/or may have some special name to Marxists (maybe it’s just ‘dialectics’). In every program or perspective, there are inherent pitfalls, inherent mistakes or modes of failure waiting _inherently_ in the particular path. This first started occuring to me reading the infamous ‘Tyrrany of Structurelessness’. I thought, _yes_ Freeman has succesfully outlined some of the ‘pitfalls’ of ’structureless’. But that doesn’t neccesarily _doom_ it, because of course there are pitfalls to (excessive? incorrectly designed? carelessly implemented?) structure too. Then I thought of this point again listening to interminable debates between ‘organizanists’ and ‘anti-organizationists’. Both sides are _correct_ in identifying some of the possible pitfalls in organization, or in lack of any organization. But that doesn’t help us decide how to proceed.

Identifying pitfalls or downsides is of no use as a tactic to trash someone elses political choices. Simply because a program or perspective has pitfalls is not reason to dismiss it, because _every_ program or perspective has it’s _own_ inherent pitfalls. Instead, the reason we identity these pitfalls (and it is an important thing to do), is as an aid to those who have _chosen_ a path with those pitfalls, as the first step to then figuring out how to avoid, minimize, deal with, or transform those pitfalls. So the Tyranny of Structureless isn’t an argument against, say, consensus or lack of hierarchy, it is instead a warning for those who choose radical democracy, that here are some things you need to be careful of and figure out how to mitigate (some of which introduce a form of hieararchy despite your intentions; so if you really want to get rid of hieararchy, you do it by identifying and working to mitigate these problems).

So, that’s a long way of saying I think you’ve nicely identified some of the ‘pitfalls’ (what’s a better word for that?) in the race privilege analysis and it’s implications for forms of resistance. Needless to say, other forms of analysis (certainly including any that ignore that race is a fundamental constructing principle of US society) will have their _own_ pitfalls.

So if not by it’s pitfalls, how DO we judge an analysis, a program, or a perspective? Back to Hardt, who suggests, both by it’s ‘truth’, and by it’s consequences for action. So is ‘past performance’ a judgement of consequences for action? It’s one aspect of that, but not neccesarily the only one. And I’m not sure that the practical evidence of race privilege analysis is all negative. Just as these pitfalls can come out of it, some of the smartest and most effective activists, revolutionaries, and radical projects I’ve seen and experienced have come out of it too (also some of the worst).

So I would suggest that the question is really NOT “can it still be saved at this late date from its problems?” The question is instead, as we walk this road, how do we mitigate and avoid those pitfalls? If in asking and answering that question, as we walk, we wind up drifting further and further away from what we now recognize as race privilege analysis, so be it. If not, not. But the important thing is figuring out how to work around those pitfalls (by which we’ll surely encounter others yet to be identified), that’s why we identify them, not to trash or abandon a program or analysis.

I have noticed more and more people bringing up these potential problems though, NOT as a critique of an ideology, but instead as a way to learn how to transcend them. Several of the articles in Upping the Anti #4 approached these issues one way or another, in an attempt to be constructive (and usually from authors in fact fully committed to privilege analysis). So I am optimistic.

Need more be said about your being a prisoner to dogmatic thinking?

I notice you did not address my question about singling out the Israeli Jewish woman for your disapproval. What can you say, really? In a presentation that has “Fighting anti-Semitism” in its title, you then go on to attack a Jew for speaking up her mind and disagreeing with your one-sided support for a fascist organization which openly adulates Hitler and preaches the completion of the final solution.

Your comments are addressed to those who understand automatically why an Israeli Jewish woman is singled out. This should cause just a stir of anxiety in any decent thinking person. Clearly Jews have no rights. It is futile to imagine that anything can induce you to dig a little into your beliefs in order to better understand what you are advocating and whom you are supporting. “Fighting for antisemitism” would have been a more honest title.

AS for this:

” “gee, that sounds like a good description of the IDF’s destruction of the Lebanese infrastructure during the summer of 2006.”

Note you own distortion of this definition.

“Terrorism is aggression against civilians as civilians, inevitably taken by surprise and defenceless. ”

It would take a real malign intent to contend that the Lebanese who were attacked, were attacked for no other reason than they were civilians, or that they were defenceless, or that they were taken by surprise. The civilians who lived on the Israel’s northern border were taken by surprise by the barrage of a 1000+ katiushas from within those “civilian” areas from across the UN ratified Blue line, an international border.

But then, why allow a few easily verifiable facts interfere with your worldview and the way you choose to revise recent history? Absolutely there is a need to forget that Jews are human beings, too, if one is to continue one’s worshipping at the feet of one’s prophets.

Thanks as always for your comments from “outside [my] universe.” I have not replied to your first comment largely because you concluded by describing my efforts as laughable, and I have better things to do than engage in conversation with people who express no solidarity with me or my ideas.

I read your quote from Glucksmann over at Bob from Brockley’s blog, and my first thought — especially regarding the last paragraph — was, “gee, that sounds like a good description of the IDF’s destruction of the Lebanese infrastructure during the summer of 2006.” For the record, I will reiterate here that I am opposed to terrorism. Full stop. You can draw whatever conclusions you want from this statement, but if you conclude that I am lying then it might help explain why I have little interest in re-enacting our exchange from last spring.

I very much enjoy reading what you have to say (largely for the reasons that you suggest I should), but I find it generally a waste of time to respond in this sort of context to people who are so contemptuous of my perspective. I do hope that you will keep posting comments; I’m highly unlikely to censor them, but I’m also not very likely to respond in any depth.

Any ideology that gives support to murderous organizations or political parties whose express platforms stipulate unambiguously genocide and destruction needs all the help it can get, from what is known as useful idiots.

Here is something you should read, to clear away some of the fog surrounding the definition of terrorism:

“…the naive, the falsely naive, and the downright evil blur categories in support of their ideological prejudices and christen the killer of innocents a “resistance fighter,

[-]

The business of terrorists, after all, is to terrorize—so said Lenin, an uncontested master in the field. The ultimate refinement lies in the inversion of responsibility. Operating instructions: I take hostages, I cut off their heads, I show them on video; those who beg for mercy must address themselves to their governments, who alone are to blame for my crimes: my hubris is their problem. The less the terrorist’s restraint, the more he causes fear and the sooner you will yield in tears, or so he believes.”

“A better definition of terrorism is a deliberate attack by armed men on unarmed civilians. Terrorism is aggression against civilians as civilians, inevitably taken by surprise and defenceless. Whether the hostage-takers and killers of innocents are in uniform or not, or what kind of weapons they use—whether bombs or blades—does not change anything; neither does the fact that they may appeal to sublime ideals. The only thing that counts is the intention to wipe out random victims. The systematic resort to the car bomb, to suicide attacks, randomly killing as many passers-by as possible, defines a specific style of engagement.” (Andre Glucksmann)

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_4_modern_terrorism.html

What so you think is the intent behind your ideological hero whom you keep quoting? What can be the intent of those who support Hizzbala and Hamas? Fighting antisemitism? How, by supporting the final solution-phase II?

Moral clarity is moral clarity. It does not need all these verbal convolutions to make itself known.

Pure and simple silence cannot be considered as a consent to a contract, except in cases when the silent person is bound in good faith to explain himself, in which case, silence gives consent.

But no assent will be inferred from a man’s silence, unless, 1st. He knows his rights and knows what he is doing and, 2d. His silence is voluntary.

When any person is … charged with any fact, and he does not deny it, in general, the presumption is very strong that the charge is correct…”

http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/s156.htm