Oh, the irony

Over on Mike Ely’s blog, a tizzy is being thrown over RCP’s “non response.”

But really, Mike Ely and Co. got a response- just not the one they wanted.

Instead of some sort of air time in the form of a name-drop or a response to the whatever points Nine Letters purportedly contains, the RCP published a wordy “Fuck You” anonymously directed to Mike and the rest of the rightist splitters.

But why should Mike and the rest of the disaffected RCPers expect anything more? Afterall, MIM has been pointing out flaws and revisionist thinking within the RCP for decades. The RCP nor Mike Ely have ever attempted to respond to these criticisms or any others coming from a similar direction. Fuck, I published a direct criticism a few months ago and there hasn’t been a single response, not even vague indirect ones.

So I have to ask, why in the world does Mike Ely think his trite little “critique” deserves some sort of special attention?

Note On Leftspot

Well, these posts have been going for quite a while with no word from “Leftspot.” For the record, I’ve left his blog a couple comments but he apparently didn’t “approve” of them.

I really hope that our international comrades are paying attention to this polemic and LeftSpot’s outright refusal to defend his bankrupt views. Pseudo-maoists like Leftspot deserve no credibility.
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"Not to reply to an argument of one's opponent on a question of principle, and to ascribe only 'pathos' to him, means not to argue but to turn to abuse"
V.I. Lenin, "Some Remarks of the 'Reply' by P. Maslov" Collected Works Vol XV

“Abuse in politics often covers up the utter lack of ideological content, the helplessness and the impotence, the annoying impotence of the abuser.”
V.I. Lenin, "The Political Significance of Abuse"

Both quoted by Mao in On the Question of Stalin.
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Update 12-24-07

Well I don't think Leftspot is going to defend his views. In the two days since I've first made this post, he's taken the time to display his "leftist" wikipedia-like understanding of Maoism but in the three+ weeks since I posted Part 1, he hasn't found time to even acknowledge my criticism.

Anyways, I'm going to send him one more comment. Will he respond? Probably not. But at least no one can say I didn't try.

The Roots of "Mass-Line" Idealism, pt 2 of 4

Last time I ragged pretty hard on Leftspot[sic] for his misapplication of the mass-line. Today I’m going to elaborate a bit more on this issue.

The root problem is basic. At the heart of Leftspot’s mass-line problem is a class-analysis problem. To be precise, a problem of an idealist and subjective class analysis instead of a materialist one. To be fair, this problem is not one that is exclusive to Leftspot and his ilk. In reality, the problem of a haphazard appreciation for scientific class analysis is one that spans across the vast majority of First World “Maoist” entities.

Mao took class analysis seriously. So much so that the first eight words of his Selected Works are “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?” For the revolution in China to succeed, communists had to have a basic grasp of not only class relations in China, but also how those classes related to outside forces. A scientific approach to these questions was at the forefront of Mao’s mind long before he started thinking about how to apply the mass-line.

For fake maoists today, the situation is reversed. “Mass-line” takes precedence while scientific class analysis takes a back seat. Leftspot and those like him simply do not take global class structure seriously. It is from this perspective that I say those like Leftspot are not practitioners of Maoism.

To what degree fakes are willing to tackle this fundamental issue, it is from a position of idealism and subjectivism, not one of materialism. What they end up with is an analysis that sounds nice; not one that is correct. Their class analysis is what they want to believe- not one that in its totality corresponds to reality.

Leftspot thinks that amerika is majority exploited. He holds this view despite all evidence suggesting otherwise. Leftspot is simply living in fantasy, not the real world.

But this series is not about global class structure or the pseudo-maoist pseudo-analysis of it: it’s about “mass-line.” And all you have to remember is that according to maoist fakes like Leftspot, mass-line is widely applicable inside amerika.

Next Part: The continuous failings of "mass-line" idealism.

See you next week,
Red Guard Camper

Update 12-13-07: Just so that everyone is aware, Leftspot's policy on this has been to thus far ignore it. He has gone so far as to delete a simple comment on his blog that said "Response to 'Fred Hampton Day' " and directed people to the first post in this series. Apparently Leftspot finds himself unable to defend his views. We'll see if he comes around by the end. I'll keep everyone updated.

Update #2: In case people are wondering, Part 3 is titled "A History of 'Mass-Line' Failings, The New Communist Movement Then And Now." But first I have to drop Part 2.9, "A Brief 'Biography' of the New Communist Movement." Those of you in the so-called "Maoist" blogosphere should really follow up on this stuff.

Response to "Fred Hampton Day"

Around the pseudo-maoist blogsphere, Leftspot[sic] put out a call for a day of blogging dedicated to Fred Hampton, the Chicago Black Panther who was murdered by the pigs on December 4th, 1969. The response to this call was pretty dismal and as always thoroughly unimpressive.

All and all, the “Fred Hampton Day” posts were really lame. Very few focused in the least bit on his line. Most were biographies with little value. These blogs would have been better off to just post a link to wikipedia.

Leftspot’s post was by far the best. This is due to the fact that it wasn’t a biography and it did focus on Hampton’s politics. However, this blog was unable to make any critical assessment of these politics almost 40 years after the fact. Likewise, instead of relating Hampton’s politics to current situations, Leftspot just dogmatically applies Hampton’s praxis regarding internally oppressed nationalities (specifically the Black nation) during the 60’s to amerika as a whole today. This particular type of unscientific reasoning is the result of an idealist, not materialist, view of global class structures and history.

Leftspot’s post focuses a lot on “mass-line.” For those that are unaware, mass-line is a Maoist method of organizing and mobilizing the masses. In mass-line, the revolutionary organization takes the needs, desires, ideas from the masses and returns it to them synthesized with revolutionary politics. From here, the masses and the cadres can engage in these ideas, plans, campaigns etc together and thereby solidify their ties. The Black Panther Party’s free breakfast program is an example of mass-line.

Leftspot, in his general noncomprehension of global class structures, slavishly applies “mass-line” to the First World where there is no mass base for revolution. In this respect, Leftspot differs from Bob Avakian and the RCP which has all but given up on mass-line, declaring it to be reformist in nature and “workerist” (whatever the fuck that means). Although a mere intuitive assessment of the futility of applying mass-line in the context of the First World, Bob Avakian and the RCP are nonetheless more correct than LeftSpot.

Leftspot, in his idiotic redundancy, states that people learn from observation and participation. He says that revolutionaries need to learn the same way: by getting out there and by, in a “revolutionary” way, working around the issues felt by the “masses”. Red Guard Camp sincerely hopes that Leftspot follows his own advise. Only by getting out there and working with no success will people like him be able to intuitively understand that there is no revolutionary potential amongst the First World “masses.”

Of course, there is an easier way to figure this out. That is by global class analysis: studying who’s living off whom. It’s not hard. Unfortunately people like Leftspot and the whole pseudo-marxist bunch have proven time and time again that they simply do not care about facts, numbers or statistics.

Oh well Leftspot, I guess you’ll find out the hard way.

Later,
Red Guard Camper

Update: RGC has decided to make this a four (maybe five) part series on "Mass-Line".

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As a comparison to LeftSpot’s platitudes, RGC invites everyone to view a recent post by Monkey Smashes Heaven. In this post, MSH celebrates the 100th birthday of Lin Piao by offering a current assessment of his line. Through viewing both of these posts (LeftSpot's and MSH’s), one can see for themselves and better understand the difference between a Maoist and a non-maoist analysis.