Yeah but that’s not any real kind of refutation and not worth disregarding the hard fought for victories that Marxists have been able to achieve across the globe, a claim like that can be levied against any sufficiently motivated group. Someone considering themselves a leftist and refusing to engage with it’s most expansive and liberatory history and theory calls into question the use of even calling people “leftists” in the first place, what’s even the point?
It’s fine to disagree with him, but when we’re talking about fellow leftists the disagreement should be with what they actually said or did. Caricaturing their positions (or more blatantly misrepresenting them) does nothing but create bitter infighting.
This term only exists to obscure the difference between communists and liberal anticommunists like Robinson and his idol Chompsky. I’m willing to entertain the possibility that every other person involved in the Current Affairs mess was actually lying about what happened to them, and that the one contributor and personal friend of Robinson who wrote the giant counter-narrative passed around in this thread is actually the only one telling the truth about it. I’m not willing to entertain the idea that just because Robinson might not be as personally shitty in his business dealings as is widely believed, that this somehow vindicates his politics. I followed the guy for years, and his politics were absolutely no different than any DSA orbiting radlib like Bhaskar Sunkara who believed that the one true socialism could only be achieved by white Americans voting, going to rallies, buying magazines, and decrying the “authoritarianism” of every successful revolutionary workers movement.
there is room for leftists who don’t worship at the alter of scientific socialism, and NJR has been a great, if perhaps slightly less than ideally radical, voice/publisher.
Yeah but that’s not any real kind of refutation and not worth disregarding the hard fought for victories that Marxists have been able to achieve across the globe, a claim like that can be levied against any sufficiently motivated group. Someone considering themselves a leftist and refusing to engage with it’s most expansive and liberatory history and theory calls into question the use of even calling people “leftists” in the first place, what’s even the point?
It’s fine to disagree with him, but when we’re talking about fellow leftists the disagreement should be with what they actually said or did. Caricaturing their positions (or more blatantly misrepresenting them) does nothing but create bitter infighting.
Social imperialists aren’t leftists. Stop repeating this tripe or just admit imperialism isn’t that important to you
This term only exists to obscure the difference between communists and liberal anticommunists like Robinson and his idol Chompsky. I’m willing to entertain the possibility that every other person involved in the Current Affairs mess was actually lying about what happened to them, and that the one contributor and personal friend of Robinson who wrote the giant counter-narrative passed around in this thread is actually the only one telling the truth about it. I’m not willing to entertain the idea that just because Robinson might not be as personally shitty in his business dealings as is widely believed, that this somehow vindicates his politics. I followed the guy for years, and his politics were absolutely no different than any DSA orbiting radlib like Bhaskar Sunkara who believed that the one true socialism could only be achieved by white Americans voting, going to rallies, buying magazines, and decrying the “authoritarianism” of every successful revolutionary workers movement.
there is room for leftists who don’t worship at the alter of scientific socialism, and NJR has been a great, if perhaps slightly less than ideally radical, voice/publisher.
Nope he’s a social fascist Jacobinite (as in the publication), a chauvinist and general weirdo