From: S CTo: marxism-international Subject: Re: M-I: For a culture of scientific discussion (Ben replies to Date: Thursday, April 09, 1998 12:01 AM Louis Godena: >Jesse Jackson ran an extortion ring out of the Chicago headquarters >of the Democrat Party, wringing tens of millions of dollars out of >"conscience-stricken" American multinationals. He then parlayed >this ignoble scam into a white wife, six Mercedes, a Senate seat, >and all-white private schools for his children. Gloria Steinhem, in >her *Ms* magazine, published some of the most anti-Marxist articles >of the 1980s. Bernie Sanders voted for the crime bill, and >criticized "Stalinist" Cuba for human rights violations. I mean, >what do these people want? >Applause? On one hand, one can agree with Louis Proyect about joining with broad-based movements in order to move them towards the left. If we do not do this and continue to cut our throats, all is lost. But at the same time, what should we say about the leaders like the above? These people will betray the working class at the blink of an eye. This thing about "white wife" and "white schools" has also to be addressed. Remember Yasser Arafat, the revolutionary. Well, he is now married to a blond young women. Quite sometime ago, he gave an interview to Barbara Walters. If you took a look at the table laden with all kinds of delicacies and then heard him and his wife speak, it could be safely assumed that all was lost even if one did not know anything about Palestine. Arafat had sold out his people for some pieces of silver. Today, he has become a virtual puppet of the Israeli state although he sometimes huffs and puffs like a toad. Another example is the priest Alan Boesak from South Africa. He too had an affair with a 'white' woman. Then there is the self-hating reactionary Clarence Thomas (US Supreme Court judge) and the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan - both married to 'white' women. When one marries into the ruling class and also seeks a mate of a priviledged 'race' or 'caste', it shows someting. I would personally not trust a person like that in any serious matter for such a person would be compromised. Also compare Martin Luther King (who had a weakness for women) with the indomitable Malcolm X (who quit a life of drugs, sex and crime) - an implacable enemy of white privilege. The Black people loved Malcolm. Yet, it was Martin who provided leadership to the mass civil-rights movements. Another example was Jawaharlal Nehru who was a handsome man and a proud Kashmiri Brahmin. He too reputedly had many affairs d'coeur one of them with Lady Mountbatten. Now how can you trust a leader of a mass national movement supposedly fighting against British rule yet who is at the same time sleeping with the wife of the British Governor General? You cannot and the treacherous history of the Indian National Congress (representatives of the big bourgeoise of India) and its actions over the past 5 decades is a testament to that. Mahatma Gandhi also tried some strange sexual experiments. He tried sleeping with unclothed women to see if he would be aroused (he was trying to renounce sex and adopt the life of Brahamacharya). Yet he was honest about this fact and wrote about it. And he was an acknowledged leader of the Indian mass movement. About the matter of sex and women's emancipation, Lenin had some intereresting things to say in the interview with Clara Zetkin (see http://www.blythe.org/mlm/). So how does one negotiate the twin valleys of reformism and sectarianism? I guess it depends upon the concrete situation with a far-seeing eye to the advancement of the class struggle. S.. --- from list marxism-international@lists.village.virginia.edu ---