From owner-marxism-international  Wed Apr 16 18:23:18 1997
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 18:23:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Amrohini J. Sahay" <ajsahay@mailbox.syr.edu>
Subject: M-I: PANIC LEFTIST: FRAME NINE
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.95.970416181948.629B-100000@forbin.syr.edu>





Revolutionary Marxist Collective (Buffalo/Syracuse)
*************************************************  




PANIC LEFTIST: FRAME NINE



Russell Pearson has decided that the current line of attack (mocking,
trivializing, scatological epithets...) is not working in driving us out. 
So, he has -- by deploying the tested manner of all bourgeois conservative
"debating" teams published by the likes of William Buckley Jr. and other
associates of "Firing Line" -- decided to introduce a new line of
discrediting our critique of the net-let.  Having seen that the attack on
"theory" is imploding, he now says he wants to discuss "recent theory". 
Russell Pearson does not know "recent" theory when he encounters it--our
RED CRITIQUE.  The only disucursive horizon that he can find to locate us
is SITUATIONALISM.  It is sad that the net-left is scrambling to "locate" 
the unfamiliar with what they feel at home with as a putdown: we are
SITUATIONALIST, we are a reincarnation of Lyndon LaRouche, we are the
return (so soon?) of the HEAVEN'S GATE...we are "sociologists", we are
"cultural studies"...we are everything but committed thinkers who think
the left seriously enough to theorize its practices...and put pressure on
the existing practices to change them.  Why is it so disturbing for the
net-left to do what the LEFT tradition has always been known for: opening
up space for the "other," the "new"...and then critique their views,
assumptions and practices...only those without any intellectual ability to
grasp the new situate it in the familiar...Left is not going backward for
comfort, it is about building the future by engaging the N E W. 
 

	Our inaugural text, "RED CRITIQUE," is a an engagement with the
most "recent" theories that have offered the most advanced and "new"
theories of not only "gender" and "sexuality" but also of a wide range of
social practices.  Our RED CRITIQUE is an engagement of, among others,
Judith Butler's, EXCITABLE SPEECH: CONTEMPORARY SCENES OF POLITICS (New
York: Routledge, 1997)...  The time has come for Pearson and associates to
put aside the old and tested maneuvers to block critique (of their
underlying assumptions) and offer (more than a name and a quote) rigorous
theorizing of contemporary forms of bourgeois ideology... beginning with
the practices on this list.  

This is supposed to be a "left" list.  

Left is supposed to stand for democratic exchanges and open critique, 

left is supposed to be equipped with the most advanced knowledges of the
time, 

left is supposed to be on the boundaries of ongoing social conflicts and
contestations...

	The serious critique cannot begin by trying to marginalize us
(Pearson's continuing to piss on us, calls us BOYZ...) but to engage us in
serious discussions.  Why not begin with the practices of the net-left?
Why not begin with "performance" theory as a theory of the social and see
how in the light of these advanced theories what Louis Proyect is saying
about "race" and "history" are basically anecdotes that have no ability to
explain race now,... why not?  Why not take the situation in Zaire not as
an occasion for yet another series of journalistic commentary but for a
materialist analysis of colonialism now?  You want to talk about "recent"
theory begin with Butler and "performance"... begin with the postcolonial
performance/the performance of the postcolonial... 




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