Really, The Big Brains Of The Left Forum Are Promoting A Revivial of Leninism

Ah, that great annual event in the life of the American "left" the Left Forum was held last weekend.   I had planned on writing a piece about its program of workshops and presentations, as I've done several times before but it slipped my mind, what with trying to save the United States from Trumpphalistic fascism.

I don't have time to go over the total range of futility in its events so I'll present just one, on its own terms.   Here's the program description of the rousing "Call for Leninist Unity"

The overthrow of the USSR was the greatest defeat for the world's working class in history. The overthrow of the USSR has emboldened US imperialism, which directly led to the wars against Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan. Libya, Syria, the Ukraine and Yemen as well as the attacks on the living standards of workers all over the world using austerity and union busting methods. The overthrow of the USSR was a shattering blow to the Marxist-Leninist movement, which meant that the world-wide working class movement was temporarily left defenseless. This panel, hopefully, can play a role in the beginning of a rebirth of the Marxist-Leninist movement by calling for all Marxist-Leninists, be they Stalinist, Trotskyist or Maoist, to reach out to each other for a dialogue that can lead to a unified Communist leadership of the fightback against US imperialism. US imperialism is taking the world to the brink of WWIII and it is only the Marxist-Leninist movement than can defend our class in this crisis. Without Marxist-Leninist leadership, the working class and the oppressed are naked in front of the most dangerous and violent ruling class in human history. Let's begin the dialogue that can lead to unity! 

Panel/Workshop Topics: 

International

Marxism, Anarchism and Theory

Political And Social Movements 

Um, hum, that's what it really says, that's what it is really proposing as a program of championing the rights of workers, Leninists, Stalinists, Trotsyists, Maoists and I'd imagine all of the eternally warring splinter factions of each of those sub-sects of Marxist religion.  Personally,  I think that getting old-line Stalinists and Trots together could generate a new genera of X-treme Fighting, geezers going after each other using ice axes.   

And as the whole world knows, things worked out so well for workers in the countries where those things were made as real as they have been anywhere.  The achievement of all of them were, unsurprisingly, when you try Marxism what you get is red-fascism. The people who have promoted those ideologies, when they got the chance, have probably produced some of the largest populations of actual slaves held in the 20th century.

You know my weakness for looking stuff up, so when I read that one of the guys who were listed as leading this little struggle. a Mike Gimbel,  had written a book with an off-the-wall title,  "Dialectical Materialism vs. The New Physics" I had to find out more.  Here's' the description at Amazon.

This book is a response to the myths created by an idealistic theory called "Relativity". Physics and cosmology has been in a disastrous crisis for almost a century. Mathematics is not physics, yet it is treated as such. The fourth dimension exists only in mathematical equations, not in reality. Black holes do not exist. Space is not curved. There is no fundamental "God particle" from which all matter is built. Objects do not carry their own time. Above all, consciousness does not determine reality. That is the old metaphysics masquerading as science. In addition, this book is a Marxist answer to Stephen Hawking and Michio Kaku's psuedo-scientific creationist theories. Here is the endorsement by Glenn Borchardt, Ph.D, author of "The Scientific Worldview" and Director of the Progressive Science Institute: "I want to congratulate you on the excellent piece of work! I definitely like your critique of Hawking and Kaku. It puts these jokers in their place. A great job! You have done so much that is needed to expose the BS that goes for physics and cosmology today."

You can go to the Amazon site and read the few five star reviews this thing got to see some of the rest of the jaw-dropping nonsense.  I say throw the pseudo-skeptics into the ring with the Marxists and things will get even more X-treme.

I add that because, though I've criticized Hawking when he goes outside his realm and goes several bubbles out of level, I don't think overlaying Marx, Engels and Hegel on top of that - nevermind Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky and Mao - is likely to make physics and cosmology more reliable science.   My critique is that such scientists and, especially, their cosmology are already excessively ideological and insufficiently the product of rigorous observation and analysis and review.  So, apparently, Gimbel's critique is that they aren't ideological enough.

Ideology as opposed to real reality, a love of ideas and ideology instead of the real lives of real people and the real world is the central idiocy of academic, theoretical, leftism.   Theorizing and abstraction are what academia values most, what will get you the most esteem and, maybe, the best jobs.  That attitude is just an alternative elitism, another caste system.  I have come to believe that even those real life underclass and working poor people who might not have thought of it in those terms yet can sense the condescension of those kinds of "leftists".   I think it's why, in every case, when communists have gained power, they have set up some of the most brutal of all elites lording it over workers, treating them as raw material for production.  

We really need to get the left out of the hands of these fools.

Update:   
As a Gay Man I Just Had To Add This

The "Abstract" on a Left Forum section entitled, "Rethinking Privilege Politics:  Marxist Perspective

Is the "privilege politics" of the 21st century left positioned to enact meaningful, systemic change? Many would appear to have already conceded this question, as the recent thrust of left discourse in the Western world has been focused on issues pertaining to identity. Questions of representation for women, for minorities and for queer groups have certainly overtaken the mainstream liberal dialogue, but these issues have become focal points for those on the left, as well. Without abandoning these very real concerns — concerns rooted both in daily experience and institutional enactments of prejudice — it is time to reintroduce Marxism to these struggles. Too often the "privilege" framework relies on interpersonal instances of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. which reduces the vast and interlocking systems of oppression to unpleasant anecdotes. While these lived accounts are important in understanding how these forces reveal themselves in day-to-day life, maintaining these critiques without coupling them to systemic analysis accomplishes little. This discussion will tackle this thorny issue head-on, determining why movements to combat oppressive forces in the real world must modify their critiques and methods if they wish to be successful. Charting a path forward against injustice in all its permutations must, ultimately, be a Marxist struggle, and movements which ignore this essential truth are doomed to failure,

Is there anything more hilarious than an assertion that a path forward against injustice must, ultimately be a Marxist struggle?   After the history of the real-life manifestation of Marxism, some of the most unjust regimes in modern history, not infrequently including the violent oppression of LGBT people, this is sheer lunacy of the kind that can only be learned by studying Marxism or some other blatantly anti-democratic ideology palmed off to a bunch of suckers as, somehow, "leftist".   

This kind of crap is a burden the real left has to heave off in order to make any kind of progress.