Re: Diverse voices call on people to engage voice of Bob Avakian
On Jun 18, 2007, at 6:42 PM, Mr. WD wrote:
Also, I was more than a little disappointed to see that Chuck D, Cornel West and Lynne Stewart lent their names to this. Aside from being creepy, what is it about Mr. Avakian that’s so attractive to people? I don’t get it.
Why did Slavoj Zizek write an intro to a book of his? Is he
personally charming or something?
Doug
June 20th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Yes, he is personally charming. That’s really not the issue.
You just can’t accept that there is a communist party in this country and that they aren’t stuck in 1980s style defeatist masochism. The era of distancing is over. They lend their names because they want these ideas and politics to be in the mix, to gain traction. They actually believe another world is possible, and by that they don’t just mean a progressive tax structure or some rebooted nonsense like a “peace dividend”. They see imperialism for what it is, and the state structure for what it is too.
If you’ve read Zizek, which I assume you have, then you’re familiar with his essay on Repeating Lenin or his Marxist critiques of the whole liberal notion of “totalitarianism”, which cribs pretty plainly from Avakian’s writing on Democracy.
I loved the piece you wrote with Parenti and Liza Featherstone on Activistism. The problem is that if you take the politics that Avakian is developing out of the mix, THAT’S WHAT YOU ARE LEFT WITH. A herd of cats playing Sisyphus. You don’t like that, but can’t get over the reality of revolutionary communist politics, and how it is both attracive to people and necessary.