A Travesty of Scholarship
A Review of Samuel Farber's 'The Politics of Che Guevara'
Renzo Llorent
Farber's book contains many claims that are demonstrably false,
coupled with a great deal of careless scholarship and numerous dubious
interpretations. The cause of these problems is twofold. First, and most
importantly, Farber chose to neglect a large amount of what Che actually
said and wrote. Secondly, Farber's disdain for the Cuban Revolution, which
prevents him from achieving a modicum of fairness, colors his book from
beginning to end. Thus, instead of an accurate exposition of Che's
political thought, Farber has produced a work that thoroughly distorts or
misrepresents many of Che's ideas, and some of his actions (including, as
we shall see, Che's role in the possible execution of innocent people). I have already drawn attention to some of the most glaring inaccuracies in
Farber's account of Che's thought in a brief book review published last
year, but the space limitations of that review prevented me from discussing more
than a small number of the countless problems with The Politics of Che Guevara. The present essay offers a more
comprehensive examination of the inaccuracies, errors, distortions and
falsehoods in Samuel Farber's study of Che Guevara. The errors in Farber's study of Che begin on practically the first page: in
the "Selected Chronology" preceding the "Introduction," Farber has Che
"graduating as a doctor" the month before he took his final exam, and also
lists the wrong date in stating when Che was granted Cuban citizenship (he
is off by a month). Such inaccuracies are, in themselves, relatively insignificant, and
certainly of much less importance than the errors that I discuss below. Moreover, to this day there remains some uncertainty as regards the exact
dates of some episodes in Che's life. Still, the errors that I have
mentioned are significant insofar as they testify to the carelessness of
Farber's scholarship, while also heralding those errors..
Colin Kaepernick, the Black Panthers, and Fred Hampton
Simon Wood
Whatever Kaepernick's and his followers' good intentions, they must be
aware that any movement that gains popularity and has potentially
revolutionary appeal will be either subverted and rendered harmless by the
state apparatus, or - if or when that fails - mercilessly crushed. That
second stage has not been reached here, and it will not, as all the signs
are there of a major media operation to re-direct and dilute the mass of
outrage away from the true target, namely class oppression and the system
that enables it - capitalism. By giving support and condemnation, the media
subverts the anger of the people and crafts the debate on its terms. Black
versus white, the people versus Trump, freedom of speech - whatever. What
it absolutely must not ever mention or encourage
understanding of is the reality that this injustice stems directly from
oppression by the ruling classes. Just keep the people arguing among
themselves. Divide and rule. This is a class issue, and to understand that requires class awareness, the
very concept identity politics was deployed to destroy. The one single
thing that petrifies the looting warmongers in control of the world's
'democratic' institutions is a mass awakening of class awareness, from
which follows the ability to discern between truth and fraud, fact and
misdirection, reality and illusion - in other words, the only means to
tackle the disease. If you listen carefully, as the right bang on and on
about respecting the flag and the left argue among themselves, demanding
some kind of vague 'justice' for the victims of police violence, on a quiet
night you can hear the ruling classes laughing over champagne in their
ivory towers. You may also hear the sound of Fred Hampton rolling fitfully
in his grave. Fred Hampton was the chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther
Party (BPP), and deputy chairman of the national BPP..
Jordan Peterson
Reactionary Guru and Accidental Incel Intellectual
Matthew Dolezal
But shortly thereafter, mere minutes into his monologue, the "self-help"
facade began to crumble. Peterson promptly advanced his discourse by using
lobster "dominance hierarchies" as a vague metaphorical justification for
hierarchies in human society. This enigmatic notion got me thinking. First of all, if any behavior in
nature should either be mimicked by humans or is "natural" when conducted
by humans, then what about eating your babies? Does Peterson advocate cannibalism? Secondly, if he's saying that human
hierarchies are inherently justifiable simply because hierarchies
exist in nature, then, in order to be logically consistent, he would have
to say slavery, Jim Crow, apartheid, and other racial hierarchies were
justifiable, as well as all other iterations of human dominance and
coercion throughout history. At this point I had more questions than answers. But I could surmise that
Peterson was simply using the naturalistic fallacy in order to rationalize his pre-existing ideology. If I wanted to be really
creative, I could defend one of my own beliefs in a similar fashion. For
instance, abortions happen all the time in nature; they're called
"miscarriages." Therefore, abortion is morally justifiable. To be clear, I do think abortion is morally justifiable, but for
other reasons (such as bodily integrity). I'm not arrogant enough to claim that my specific moral views are
warranted by some pseudo-pantheistic "order." Unfortunately, my entire
moral outlook hinges on my..
The Unions and Class Struggle
A Marxist Analysis
The Socialist Party of Britain
What should be the attitude of socialists toward trade unions? Unions are
the workers most effective means of defense under capitalism. In the
absence of unions, the workers have no way of braking the downward pressure
on their living standards and their working conditions. Only by means of
their combined numbers in labor unions are the workers able to put up same
form of resistance against the insatiable drive of capital for more surplus
value. Only through unions can the workers ease the strain and stress on
their nerves and muscles in the factories, mills, and mines. Since surplus
value is produced at the paint of production, the most violent
manifestations of the class struggle break out at that point. The history
of the labor movement proves the Marxian contention that wages are not
regulated by any "iron law" but can be modified by organized militant
action on the part of the workers, the value of the workers labor-power is
not only determined by physicall limitations of the human body, but also by
what Marx calls historical and social factors. One of the most weighty of
these factors is the class war. A comparison of the living standards of
organized to those unorganized workers tells the story in a nutshell. The
US Bureau of Labor Statistics issues statistics showing a breakdown of
figures proving that wages are lowest in those occupations in which the
workers are not organized or are at best only partly organized. American
workers have long organized in unions..
