Saturday, April 15, 2006

Leftist Documentaries

Been watching a few documentaries lately and come across a few I'd like to share:

1) A Place Called Chiapas (1998) - About the Zapatista revolution and their struggle for peace and independence from Mexico's bad government after their signing of NAFTA.

2) Fidel: The Untold Story (2002) - A very informative documentary regarding the Cuban revolution and Fidel Castro's life.

3) The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2003) - I talked about this earlier, but thought I'd re-mention it incase it went unnoticed. The documentary is about Chavez and the attempt by the bourgeois to conduct a coup and how Chavez came back to power.


**NEW**

4) China: A Century of Revolution (2000) - A surprisingly unbias account of Communist China. I only watched the first two discs because I'm uninterested in the Capitalist China were see today. The impression I got from this documentary was that Mao was a heroic revolutionary and a completely inept statesman.

5) Brother Minister: Malcolm X (1994) - A good documentary on Malcolm X and his assassination. It also put forth the argument that Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were going to create an alliance; King in the South, Malcolm in the North.

6) The Take (2004) - Incredible documentary about Argentine workers siezing control of a factory shut down by it's bosses. It shows their struggle and success. These workers are setting a model which will consume the world.

7) Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists (1980) - This explores the Anarchist movement mainly around the "Free Voice of Labor" Yiddish newspaper and interviews a large amount of Anarchists who were attacked in the Palmer Raids and were alive during the heyday of Anarchy in the USA. Pretty good documentary and I recommended this to those who are interested in Anarchist history.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Is Lenin crazy?

For some reason, while I'm reading through Lenin's writings - I feel as though I'm getting dumber. Using the flawed Dialectical Materialism, he was able to come to scientific conclusions just from looking merely at this sentence:
"John is a man."
In his Philosophical Notebook.

He also claimed that Bakhurin, who was part of the SU "communist" party, wasn't a Marxist because Bakhurin said this:
“Comrades, many of you may find that the current controversy suggests something like this: two men come in and invite each other to define the tumbler on the lectern. One says:‘It is a glass cylinder, and a curse on anyone who says different.’ The other one says:‘A tumbler is a drinking vessel, and a curse on anyone who says different’”

Because Bakhurin isn't using dialectics, Lenin comes to the conclusion that he isn't a Marxist.

Although Marx used Dialectical Materialism, it was inherited by his teacher, Hegel. Hegel was not a Communist and the whole dialectical method is a very traditional and conservative approach to philosophy. Not to mention it's uses being a complete failure in all countries that adopt Lenin's teachings and therefore his support for dialectics.

If you want to know more about the dialectics and it's uselessness, check out the essays by Rosa Lichtenstein here:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/