Dear Ben:

You argue that the bourgeoisie remains organized on a national basis and this is not likely to change in our lifetime. You refer to Lenin's 'Imperialism' to back your argument up.

That's part of your problem, Ben. I've read Lenin's 'Imperialism' many times and it contains many fine lessons. But it was written more than 80 years ago, long before the recent revolution in the means of production, ie, the information revolution, that is assisting in the rise of the global capitalist class. In brief, things have changed a bit, Ben, and if you want to understand what's going on today, you have to supplement Lenin with a more up-to-date analysis. If he were around, that's certainly what he would do.

I figured you would come back with Kautsky and the theory of 'Ultra-imperialism.' That doesn't bother me; it might do us all well to take another look at some of his arguments. Just because he was wrong on the Russian revolution and WW1 doesn't mean everything he said was trash, especially in view of how the Soviet project eventually turned out. Even Lenin refered to him as a major theoretician at an earlier point, although Lenin certainly trashed the ultra-imperialism line, and rightly so, for his period.

But even so, I would suggest some of the more modern bourgeois writers like Wriston, Stiglitz or Svieby might help get you up to date with what's going on in the world today. Otherwise, just to limit ourselves to re-reading Lenin, we're left with the prognosis of a new round of inter-imperialist war, say, between the US and France? Or Russia? I don't think so.

You want us to be independent of the Democrats and become more oriented to the working class. But what does this mean, concretely? It's can't mean to adopt the views of most of the white workers, since they went for Bush. It can't mean most of the minority workers, since they went for Kerry. It can't mean the workers' organizations, the unions, since they are firmly connected to the Democrats, with some playing footsie with the GOP. It can't be the various socialist groups in the US, since you think they're all social-democratic or revisionist sellouts.

So it means one of two things. You have a metaphysical conception of what the working class, ie, sort of like Plato's forms, that we need to orient ourselves to. Or we need to orient ourselves to the true expression of the class line represented by the works of Ben Seattle. Thanks, but no thanks on both counts.

I do agree that we need to develop our own analysis, strategy and tactics for the mass struggles that are a counter-hemononic project not only to oppose the Democrats, but to replace them with a new organization that a majority of workers and others among the masses would see as their own. I would like it to reflect the market socialist ideas in Schweickart's book, 'After capitalism' for starters. And, finally on this score, I'm hardly a social-democrat; if you want to pin an old label on me, try neo-Bukharianite Gramscian revisionist instead. It's more accurate.

You probablt know where our views can be found, but in case others are interested, try

www.cyrev.net and
www.solidarityeconomy.net

But all this is beside the point initially raised, the current danger of fascism. I tried to take it seriously and suggest why it is rising at this time. I agree some of the RCP stuff is more than a bit hyper. But besides some old dogmas, you don't have much new and concrete to say, which would be much more interesting to hear from you about. I've read many of your works, appreciate some of them, and know you can do better.

Have you studied the new Christian fascists? What do you think of them? Can we just pooh-pooh and ignore them and aim our main blow at the liberals? Or do we have to counter them in some way, especially since they have some foothold in the working class?

All this is much more interesting than getting in a pissing match about who can better quote the classics written 80 to 160 years ago, which I can do just as well as you, but in the end is quite boring.

Seriously, Ben, let's try to get this discussion on a better level.