The 75th Anniversary Issue of Monthly Review, and Left Nostalgia

 

The May 2024 issue of the self-described “independent socialist magazine” Monthly Review was its 75^th Anniversary issue.  Founded in May 1949 by two 1930s socialist radicals who became its first Editors, economist Paul Sweezy and labor journalist Leo Huberman, Monthly Review declared itself to have no allegiance to any particular left or socialist party, although its articles all veered to the “far left,” or “revolutionary left,” especially to those declaring themselves Marxists of one sort or another.   Over the decades, Monthly Review carried articles mainly by intellectuals of Trotskyist or Maoist persuasions, as well as more orthodox communists and even neo-Stalinists, but decidedly not those who were anarchists or social democrats, as Monthly Review’s orientation was for “revolutionary socialism” as opposed to “mere reformism.”  (However, Monthly Review did once carry an article by Marxist-turned-anarchist Murray Bookchin highly critical of Mayor Bernie Sander’s socialist programs in Burlington Vermont.)    Monthly Review, of course, catalogued the various ills and crises of capitalism while always saying the only remedy was socialism.  But as it was overwhelmingly an intellectual journal, it was appealing not so much to a beleaguered proletariat to make the Revolution as it was for left and socialist intellectuals to educate for socialism, especially among the young, and proclaim themselves socialists instead.  In fact, Monthly Review steered clear of discussing programmatic proposals, of answering the question, “What Is to Be Done Next?” except on only one occasion, when in 1969 it effusively supported SDS (Students for a Democratic Society, the leading 1960s New Left group in the US) recognizing the Black Panther Party as the revolutionary “vanguard.”  That was its only direct foray into concrete left politics of any day, although it did also, in 1966, openly support the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and split on the Soviet Union’s 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, with Editor Leo Huberman roundly denouncing it while the other Editor, Paul Sweezy, stayed airily above the fray and discussed “revisionism” in abstract terms, indirectly accusing Dubček and his Czech allies of engaging in it.  Further, while in 1957, on the 40^th Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, which had installed the “temporary” Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the Editors did say critically that “forty years was too long” for such a dictatorship, during the Sino-Soviet Split Monthly Review came out firmly on the side of the Chinese, who were even more hardline and authoritarian than the Soviets!

 

Monthly Review has gone through many Editors since then, replacing the deceased Leo Huberman with Harry Magdoff, and then, after the retirement and death of Paul Sweezy, having as Editors Ellen Meiksin Wood, Robert McChesney, and presently, John Bellamy Foster, all the while keeping its “revolutionary socialist” orientation intact.  Bellamy Foster is very much the orthodox Marxist, looking especially to the 1930s and 1940s Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA) as the halcyon model of socialism in America, still awaits the final collapse of capitalism, and, as someone particularly ecologically-minded, sees Marx as especially someone with full-throated ecological concerns, a harbinger of contemporary ecological thinking on de-growth and only limited sustainability being possible in a world of finite resources—something this author sees as highly improbable coming from a thinker living entirely in the 19^th Century (1818-1883, as did his friend and collaborator Frederick Engels [1820-1895], when developmentalism and unlimited growth were in intellectual vogue.  Although, even then, Marx and Engels had serious environmental reservations about unlimited capitalist growth.)  But that is Monthly Review—for whom Marx and Engels were not so much great, incisive thinkers as they were infallible prophets, whose insights are eternal and never wrong, irrelevant, or even conditional.

 

But back to the 75^th Anniversary issue.  Monthly Review commemorates its anniversary with four particular cases of left nostalgia.  First is a long article by Editor John Bellamy Foster (who always writes a long article monthly for the magazine, or else is featured in a long interview.  These are featured as “Review of the Month,” a practice begun under Huberman and Sweezy.) on how Albert Einstein created one of his best-known essays outside of physics for the first issue of the magazine, his short introductory essay on the topic titled “Why Socialism?”  Like all such “Reviews of the Month,” it is excruciatingly and pedantically footnoted with every possible reference or aside, in this particular case, with 91 such.  This author took to re-reading Einstein’s “Why Socialism?” and found it a good essay, but not a great one.  Only eight pages long in this author’s copy of the Einstein anthology Ideas and Opinions (New York:  Crown Publishers, 1954), Einstein’s actual discussion of the ills of capitalism and the consequent necessity of socialism takes up only the last three of these pages, and Einstein’s brief for socialism only the last two paragraphs!  (Making it indeed a—brief brief!  Yes, pun intended.)  However, in the very last paragraph, Einstein does raise the possibility that the benefits of a planned economy under socialism could be thwarted or denied if it degenerated into bureaucracy—a notable caveat, given than on the left, especially the orthodox Communist left, adulation of the Soviet Union under Stalin (which prided itself on a planned economy) was de rigueur for anyone calling himself socialist or communist, or in many cases, even liberal or progressive!  Monthly Review’s willingness to discuss and publish such straying from orthodoxy even got it called out by the CPUSA for possible “Trotskyite or Titoite” deviations!  (Huberman and Sweezy responded by firmly upholding Monthly Review as not “Titoite,” and did not even deign to address whether it was “Trotskyite”!)

 

In addition to being a socialist, Einstein also viewed himself as a Zionist, and had been ever since the rise of Nazism in his native Germany in the 1920s, which the May 2024 “Review of the Month” tried manfully, though unsuccessfully, to downplay.  Yes, Einstein was a humane Zionist, meaning nothing more than he believed in a Jewish home in what was then Palestine, and little more; although, citing Ideas and Opinions once again, Einstein pointedly noted that, with the emancipation of the Jews in Europe from the ghettoization and discrimination inflicted previously on them, many Jews gave up their Jewish ways and tried to assimilate—only to be thwarted by antisemitism, by being painfully reminded that, to the European Gentiles, they remained Jews, and would always remain Jews! (pp. 181-82)  Hence, his humane Zionism.

 

As for the other three pieces of nostalgia in this particular issue, there is a “Notes from the Editors” (another regular feature of Monthly Review) on then-Editors Huberman and Sweezy’s essentially dismissive take from 1974 that Watergate was of no major political import as far as maintaining capitalism was concerned, and that also, Huberman and Sweezy’s preoccupation with pollution as a specific environmental threat brought Huberman and Sweezy into accord with Bellamy Foster’s radical ecologism.  There is a also a brief quote from Paul Sweezy that, in response to his left critics who state otherwise, he still upholds Marx’s Theory of Value, and a 2000 note by then-Editors Harry Magdoff, John Bellamy Foster and Robert McChesney that the beginning of the 21^st Century was no time to abandon belief in revolutionary socialism, and that Monthly Review readers should still keep the socialist faith.  All reminiscent of the old saying, “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”  Yes, since 1949 Stalin, Brezhnev and Mao have died, Khrushchev and Gorbachev tried to reform Soviet Communism and were deposed for their efforts, the dictatorial socialist Soviet Union became the kleptocratic capitalist dictatorship Russia, China dabbled in capitalism and transformed its formerly  “pure socialist” economy from underperformance to  world-power status, the welfare state waxed and waned but never disappeared despite capitalist wishes otherwise, public opinion in the US and other Western parliamentary democracies went from largely center-left to now substantially center-right, and much else besides, yet the hoary shibboleths traceable back to Marx and Engels are still as relevant as they ever were!  Supposedly.  What will Monthly Review write on its 100^th Anniversary?  No, the whole world is not waiting and wondering!   

Mental Health Writings: What if There Was Truth in Advertising for Psychiatric Drugs?

 

Then the list of side effects might look like this—

 

Caution: May cause flattening of the personality, making you as interesting and exciting as an ironing board.

 

May cause weight gain of three hundred pounds.

 

In certain rare cases, may cause sudden and unexpected death.

 

If you experience any of these symptoms, or find yourself unexpectedly dead, call your mental health provider immediately, or go to the nearest emergency room.

I Am Angry, Sick and Tired

 I wrote this poem on November 1, 2023, in response to Hamas's unconscionable attack on Israel, October 7, 2023--GF

 

Of the incessant, ongoing carnage

in the Middle East, this time in

the latest round of violence

between Hamas and Israel,

violence first promulgated by

the atrocities of Hamas against

Israelis on October 7, 2023, and

inevitably followed by the

retaliatory violence inflicted

against the Hamas stronghold of

Gaza, where innocent civilians are

held hostage by this Islamofascist

nightmare of an organization,

same as innocent Israeli Jews and

Arabs had murderous violence inflicted

on them by Hamas in the first place.

Hamas started it, Israel will finish it,

and well-meaning public opinion

calling for a cessation of hostilities

be damned and cast into hell!  

Cast there by intransigence on both sides,

each side held openly captive

by fanatical religious belief

that sees only righteousness on its

side, and regards the other side as

subhuman—as if further proof

were needed that religion poisons everything,

that men (and women) are not good because

of religion, but in spite of religion! 

The whole thing explodes as

an ongoing Greek tragedy, where

impersonal Fate triumphs over the wishes

and caprices of mere humans, whether

they like it or not—because impersonal Fate

cares not what the wishes and caprices of

mere mortals are.  Once again, an endless

spinning wheel of hate, carnage and bloodshed,

all of which leads not to a resolution, but only

to further cyclical irresolution.  “Enough!”

I cry out angrily, but in despair; cry out

in the name of a common humanity

once again thwarted and rendered

powerless in the face of it.  So, thus does it

seem once again, forever, and forever,

                                                world without end, Amen.  Fuck

Mental Health Writings: Open Letter to the Members and Staff of Circle City Clubhouse

 I've been a member of the Circle City Clubhouse since January 2016, and am now deliberately inactive, for the reasons given below in this Open Letter--GF

Yes, I’ve been a Clubhouse member since the beginning of 2016, although I deliberately haven’t been active since the pre-COVID days before 2020.  I did return once not quite a year ago, in 2023, as an example of positive mental health recovery, and even shared a document I had written on my recovery, which was well received (and actually read!) by Clubhouse members, and which was originally recommended for publication in the Clubhouse newsletter; but that was scotched by the then-Assistant Executive Director, Pat, who claimed that my recovery was strictly a “personal” one (whatever that means!), and besides, I’d also urged Clubhouse members to make more demands on staff members to make sure their needs were met (isn’t that what Clubhouse staff members are there for?), which was a big “No-no” for Pat.  Yet, “personal” or not, for my recovery really had nothing to do with the Clubhouse, my recovery is very much real, and is recognized as such by all those who did Know Me When, and now know me as I am now.

 

However, unlike almost all the new Clubhouse members who are interviewed for the Clubhouse newsletter (by the way, a very insipid and too much real-content-free newsletter), I was not doing nothing before I joined the Clubhouse.  I had just started a full-time job that previous summer, on August 15, 2015, and, though very late in life, I was now employed in a job that was permanent, layoff-free, which paid decently, and had union protection!  I was also actively engaged in very effective psychotherapy, and had been since July 2014, and was to remain in active therapy until the end of June 2019—69 months of most helpful psychotherapy to make up for 47 years of very bad, frequently malfeasant, and very ineffective psychiatric treatment I’d endured at CMHCs (Community Mental Health Centers) and university clinics from September 1965 to beginning of June 2012!  Further, even though it took me 11 years, I’d also earned a university degree (Bachelor of Arts in economics, Indiana University), and had, through Indiana Vocational Rehabilitation, earned a certificate as a paralegal—while also suffering from my mental disorder of a schizoid personality disorder and chronic depression.  So, unlike way too many Clubhouse members, I was far from doing nothing before I came to the Clubhouse!  Where too many come, I’m afraid, simply because the housekeepers, supposed mental health professionals, and others refer them simply to get them from being underfoot.  And to my mind, too often this is just substituting one kind of warehousing for another. 

 

Yes, I’ll be blunt, as I will be throughout this Open Letter.  In fact, from reading the Clubhouse newsletter, I know of only two exceptions:  one was a college graduate like me, and was an active rap singer; the other, Alec C, has a good union job at UPS.  So, both were far from dead-end kids with too little gumption to make anything of their lives—which, unfortunately, is not the case with far too many Clubhouse members of my acquaintance.  As an excellent psychotherapist I once had put it so well, “Recovery means meeting challenges and overcoming them.”  However, one does not come to the Clubhouse to learn how to “overcome;” one too often comes to the Clubhouse simply to mark time, and do unpaid menial labor, for which there is zero reward.  Some have been coming to the Clubhouse for years, and are no more on the track to recovery after all those years than they were at the beginning.  Far too often, the Clubhouse, with its terrible dearth of programs, is just someplace you come to kill time and stagnate.   

 

I was active in the Circle City Clubhouse from January 2016 until late summer 2019.  I remember my first introductory orientation to the Clubhouse well:  I was impressed initially with what it seemed to offer; at last, I had found a welcoming home as a mental health consumer!  However, what I hadn’t realized at the time was that my hosts were but able presenters, they had been scripted well.  When they were off-script, as they later were at the Clubhouse, they were both horrible and knew little to nothing, although both liked to opine based on their really substantive lack of knowledge!  My next encounter at the Clubhouse was the beginning of the disillusionment—here I encountered one of my original hosts, Nathan, going off on a ten-minute rant about how he, an evangelical Christian, wished he could afford to tithe, even though he was broke and couldn’t hold a job for any length of time!  I also encountered Clubhouse cliquishness, as no one ever greeted me or said even “Hi” to me this whole time of 2016-2019.  Despite this, I participated; and my outside friends were really glad I had at last found a place congenial to sharing my experiences, substantially negative, as a mental health consumer.  Alas, it was not to be!  The last thing Clubhouse members were was open about their experiences and encounters as mental health consumers; very quickly, I realized how mind-dead almost all of them were, especially the regular attendees.  I shared my mental health writings I’d done earlier with the Clubhouse, donating copies to the Clubhouse library, which were soon lost, and with no staff member knowing what had happened to them, which, to me, was an unacceptable travesty.  Didn’t the staff exercise normal supervisory duties over the Clubhouse members?  The answer, I found out, was No, that “benign neglect” was the way of the Clubhouse world, even when it led irresponsibly to my documents getting irretrievably lost.  Which was so shameful I can never forgive the Clubhouse for allowing that to happen.

 

All this despite my initially being quite active in the Clubhouse, notably from the time I joined, in January 2016, until the summer of 2018, and even somewhat afterward.  For example, I published eight articles under my byline in the Clubhouse newsletter, the most that anyone has published under his/her byline.  I also prepared for the 2018 Clubhouse retreat a 14-page paper of suggestions on how the Clubhouse could be improved, and gave specifics in this paper on just what I found wrong and inadequate with the Clubhouse.  I penned fourteen pages out of love!  Yes, tough love, but that’s legitimate love, especially when I saw the Clubhouse messing up, functioning quite badly.  Alas, I wasn’t even allowed to present my paper, even though then-Assistant Executive Director Lindsay Brock promised me I’d be allowed to.  (No longer employed at the Clubhouse, where Executive Director Jay Brubaker was her supervisor, she’s now Jay’s live-in girlfriend, although he calls her his “fiancé;” however, in this “woke” age, supervisors having even consensual sexual relations with work subordinates have gotten into deep trouble for it.)  When my paper was finally introduced as part of the day’s agenda, Brock, instead of calling on me to present an outline of my tome, turned the floor over to others instead, people who had never read my paper, but who criticized me sharply for even writing it.  One of those persons who did this was long-time Clubhouse member Savella, and she was followed by another woman who essentially repeated Savella.  Long-time member Nathan again then chimed in, attacking me for not spending more time at the Clubhouse despite what he knew to be true, that I worked full-time, I was fully self-supporting because of my job, and thus didn’t have the “leisure” to hang around the Clubhouse that Nathan did, because he always seemed to be regularly unemployed!  (Holding a job for a while, only to lose it.)  All this was hardly fair to me, but no one at the Clubhouse objected, neither members nor staff—even though it was obvious that my specific voice was being summarily silenced!  

 

Of course, I differed substantively from most Clubhouse members, even though, like them, I had a psychiatrically diagnosed mental illness.  For one thing, I’m a college graduate, who, even though it took me 11 years, still graduated despite my mental illness! I’m also employed full-time, and completely self-supporting—no welfare, no SSDI, no SSI, no working merely part-time when I wanted full-time work, and now, because I also receive Social Security and a small pension from my employer in addition to my wages, make $48,000 a year and own outright my own car.  I’m also a talented, extensively published writer and poet whose writer’s biographies appear in Who’s Who in America for both 2019 and 2020!  In other words, I had (and have still) a lot of gifts that could’ve been real assets to the Clubhouse, and to its members, but I was prevented from using them properly, even though I had wanted to.  In other words, I was shunned by the Clubhouse, by members and staff alike. 

 

The only Clubhouse staffer who had any positive regard for me was Peter Hofstetter, the Clubhouse’s best employee ever, and one of the first to be laid off because of COVID, while far less able Clubhouse staffers kept their jobs.  A horrible mistake on the Clubhouse’s part, for which the Clubhouse bears full responsibility.  Peter was conscientious and able, which can’t be said of all Clubhouse staffers, most of whom are nothing more than do-little-or-nothing glorified babysitters.  Of course, Clubhouse staff wages (except at the top) are abysmal, but since most Clubhouse staffers do almost nothing, and don’t even do a good job at the little they do, it’s only “fitting” in a way they are paid like the teenage babysitters they essentially are—even though they’re older than teenagers and are required to have college degrees!  I’m in the union at my job, and as an active trade unionist I look askance at the paltry wages Clubhouse staffers accept.  (Wages so low that Peter, when he worked at the Clubhouse, was forced to dip into his savings to maintain himself on his job, as he had a wife and children to also support.)  I remember asking a former staffer (not Peter) how much he was making, and from the info he gave me, I calculated he was only making around $11.50 an hour—this in the late part of the second decade of the 21^st Century!  I hope you staffers are now doing better than that, though I really doubt it; if you are, most likely it isn’t by much; and why you would stomach such low wages when you are required to “earn” them by having a college degree in the first place, I find exceptionally appalling! 

 

At my own blue-collar job, which requires only a high school diploma (and sometimes not even that, if one has an especially stellar work record), I started out in August 2015 at $10.70 and hour, which went to $12 an hour in October that year, and built-in annual wage increases even since, doe to our union contract.  I’m now up to $17.10 an hour, soon to rise to $17.60 an hour, an over 60% increase!  Furthermore, and needless to say, my making halfway decent money at my job is also therapeutic for my mental health recovery.  Which is why I refuse to do any work at the Clubhouse, as it is for free, i.e., it is, by definition, slave labor.  Were the Clubhouse to have  assigned me to college graduate-level jobs, I might’ve considered working for free; however, since all Clubhouse jobs are mindless menial labor, I’m not about to do them for free.  I do mindless menial labor at my regular job, and I’m not about to do any such for free!  It’s either pay me adequately, or expect no work whatsoever from me!

 

Nor does the Clubhouse do anything substantial for its members to find and hold jobs, a key part of re-entry into “normal” societal life.  In the first place, the Clubhouse focuses on resume writing, which is useful only for professional positions; it’s job applications that have to be filled out to get the prospective employer’s attention, not resumes, and most employers are wanting to know the applicant’s job record for the previous five years—and it the applicant doesn’t have one, or it’s not a good one, that’s a hurdle that has to be jumped over.  Clubhouse staff should be helping prospective jobseekers how to overcome that, but aren’t.  Also, they should be helping jobseekers to know where to look for work, and how to properly pass a job interview.  Again, the Clubhouse staff does none of those things.  The Clubhouse further has far too few Transitional Employers, can’t seem to recruit more, and can’t seem to hold onto them in many cases.  Again, the staff should be working with Executive Director Jay Brubaker and the Clubhouse Board of Directors  to overcome that.

 

Further, from what I can gather, many Clubhouse members are high school dropouts, a sure killer of a decent future.  The Clubhouse staff should be offering programs to help members get their high school diplomas, or if that’s not possible, their GEDs.  The Clubhouse staff should also be helping people develop literacy and math skills, should be recommending books to Jay and the Board that they should include in the Clubhouse library, and insist that the Clubhouse library have a budget to purchase books.  The staff should also be encouraging members to read, and to utilize the Clubhouse and public libraries.  Last, the staff should cajole, gently and tactfully, yet insistently, Clubhouse members to show gumption and initiative, and actively set goals for themselves, all the better to achieve mental health recovery.  One is not “recovered” simply because on is on SSDI or SSI and doing nothing; recovery means holding a “normal” job, and interacting in society like “normal” persons, not like people with debilitating disabilities.

 

Yes, the Clubhouse staff, from the top down, from Executive Director and Assistant Executive Director on down, has to be more proactive in cajoling and incentivizing Clubhouse members to show gumption and not be so passive!  Also, Clubhouse members need to “importune” staff members to fulfill their needs, set up programs to fulfill those needs, and to ensure that staffers are meeting their needs.  This toddler-neglectful babysitter relationship between members and staffers has got to end!

 

The Circle City Clubhouse makes the outrageous claim that 310 of its members, out of a total membership since its existence of 320, have recovered!  This is a pure lie.  Truth is, most people who ever attended the Clubhouse either dropped out, or showed up once, at their orientation meeting, and were never heard from again.  But I say, they didn’t leave because they “recovered,” they left because they saw how little the Clubhouse had to offer them.  (One of the reasons I also left the Clubhouse.)  But of the 320 members who’ve come (and usually have gone) through the Clubhouse, only about 20 are active participants, and they tend to be the same old participants.  Which I’ll say it bluntly, only indicates that they’re—stagnating!  They somehow enjoy the meaninglessness of Clubhouse life; but they certainly aren’t “recovering” from their mental illnesses. 

 

The Clubhouse spends an inordinate amount of time on fund raising, for what ends no one knows, and, again, just as with Clubhouse household maintenance, dragoons Clubhouse members to assist in fund-raising activities, once again, for free.  Unconscionable, same as having members do Clubhouse maintenance work for free!  Clubhouse members deserve to be paid for their work; not to do so is to use them as slave labor, as I’ve also said above.                

 

I’m just not impressed by Executive Director Jay Brubaker, whom I’ve known since 2016, and know him to have one, and only one, real talent, that of schmoozing.  He knows how to schmooze the Clubhouse Board, he knows how to schmooze the naïve Clubhouse members, he knows how to schmooze away any objections that staff might have; in other words, he’s skilled at that, but nothing more.  He’s a failed lawyer who could be making a lot more money were he a halfway decent one.  He’s just skilled at getting away with stuff.  He once tried to punish me for being too “negative” about the Clubhouse, then denied he’d ever threatened me with reprisal, but then I showed him the e-mail he’d sent me threatening me, and he had to retreat, bleating lamely that acting against me “was not [his] intent”!

 

However, Jay could have used his lawyer’s background and, presumably, the lawyering skills it gave him to advise the Clubhouse members when they drew up their statement for the Clubhouse on what would be allowed in the newsletter in terms of articles, and what one could say in the newsletter.  As it was, the statement drawn up was much more restrictive than legally required, and Jay could’ve properly used his legal skills to advise these neophyte members in drawing up a proper statement, one that was fully in accordance with statute law and court rulings, but was also not overly restrictive.  This “hands off” approach that seems to be required of Jay and the staff actively works against the best wishes of the Clubhouse members, however, as they lack the expertise that Jay and the staffers supposedly have.  After all, Jay and the staff all have to possess college degrees to even work in the Clubhouse, so presumably they’d have good ranges of expertise—something valuable to ordinary Clubhouse members!  But alas, ordinary Clubhouse members are just cast off to drift, to muddle through inexpertly, by the Clubhouse’s strict “hands off” approach, an approach that hurt me personally when, due to lack of proper supervision, my mental health writings given gladly as a gift to the Clubhouse were unconscionably lost forever.  Passive babysitters are definitely not what the Clubhouse needs!

 

In ending, let me point out that my absence from the Clubhouse has also been a time of—active mental health recovery for me!  My mental health is sterling, the result of five years and nine months of excellent psychotherapy done by compassionate and understanding mental health professionals.  I have finally put my dismal decades of horrible mental health treatment at the hands of CMHCs and university clinics, the quintessential poor people’s mental health treatment outlets, far behind me. (I feel for all of you still having to use the CMHCs for your mental health treatment, because they can be so terribly inadequate, especially in Indiana, which ranks 45^th out of the 51 states plus D.C. in terms of adequacy of mental health services.  I lucked out.  I was able to find excellent private alternatives that accepted my Medicare. [I don’t know any private provider who’ll accept Medicaid.])   I am no longer in therapy, and I am also no longer interested in participating in the Clubhouse, save in only one regard—when Clubhouse International comes around to review the Circle City Clubhouse’s accreditation, and how well it is doing its job (which is, let me bluntly say, doing it inadequately), then I’d like to address the Clubhouse International accreditation body on why Circle City Clubhouse should be decertified.

Unless, of course, the Clubhouse takes my criticisms of it to heart (as expressed in this Open Letter, and in earlier writings to the Clubhouse), and makes necessary changes and improvements.  But if the Clubhouse continues its presently highly inadequate business-as-usual, then it needs to be decertified!

 

Other than that, I wish not to be involved, although as I am writing this Open Letter in good faith, I do hope it will be received in good faith also, and I encourage all at the Clubhouse who wish to, members and staffers alike, to reply to me and my Open Letter.  Say anything you want, be as firm with me as you wish, but I do require this:  you must be civil!  No profanity, no name-calling, no verbal abuse whatsoever.  You’re all adults—write like adults!  You may send all such replies to me via my e-mail, georgefish666@yahoo.com.  (Yes, that is the Mark of the Beast from Revelation!  I’m proudly an ex-Catholic atheist, proud survivor of Catholic parental and school system abuse.)  I end, “Therapeutically yours, and wishing Clubhouse members much better than they’re getting.”  Yes, you can recover!  Each of you can improve your situation!  Just have the gumption to try!  Keep in mind always the old Chinese saying:  “Don’t fear going slow, fear standing still.”  Yes, even a little bit of progress can be a lot.  Don’t forget it.

 

That is all I have to say, and I wish you all well.  I give all of you, members and staff alike, my love:  tough love, to be sure, but tough love is sometimes the best kind of love one can give—or get.

Mental Health Writings: Another Original Poetic Contribution of Mine to the Discussion of "Spirituality"

 

SO WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY?

by

George Fish

 

It is Torquemada;

and it is

Catholic priest-pedophilia,

and its even more foul

and disgusting

deliberate cover-up.

It is the idiotic and senile

Pat Robertson

spewing his vile,

vitriolic drivel

over the TV airwaves.

It is persecuting Galileo

and burning Giordano

Bruno at the stake

for teaching as supposed

heresy that which

modern science now affirms,

and affirms with deep conviction.

It is burning alleged witches

alive, along with supposed

heretics and homosexuals.

It is what Enda Kenney,

Prime Minister of

overwhelmingly Catholic

Ireland, sick and tired

of Vatican obstruction,

called out as the

Catholic Church’s

culture of “disconnect,

dysfunction, narcissism

and elitism.”

It is constantly haranguing

people about abortion,

birth control, and the mores

of allegedly “proper and

improper” sexual intimacy

in sharing love with those

whom they specially care about,

regardless of sexual orientation.

It is being constant genital police,

a special inquisitorial office

reserved notably

for celibate old males.

It is all these, and more—

or less, as it is

so profoundly

anti-human,

inhumane,

and just plain abusive.

The Duties of the Left-Wing Intellectual

 

First and foremost, the duties of the left-wing intellectual comprise those of any intellectual, regardless of ideological predisposition—to be an independent seeker of truth, and to follow the pursuit of truth no matter where it may take him/her, even into regions discordant with his/her already-established political, social, and cultural beliefs.  In other words, the pursuit of truth, no matter what, is a journey into knowledge, not faith; and should knowledge and faith conflict, for the true intellectual, knowledge, not faith, not belief, will win out.  If what I believe is now contradicted by the facts, I will abandon or modify my belief in favor of the facts.  Not the other way around.  That is what true intellectualism is, and it holds regardless of any ideology, be it left, right, center, or any combinations or hybrids of those. 

 

For the left-wing intellectual, be s/he a true intellectual, is a knowledge-seeker first, a committed ideologue decidedly second.  S/he is decidedly not a missionary, a proselytizer, a salesperson, an influencer; s/he is a mentor, a guide to others on what is truth and how it is to be found, not a pastor or guru with special arcana to impart.  The left-wing intellectual, same as any intellectual, relies on logic, reason, proof, demonstration, and evidence to raise awareness of knowledge; s/he does not rely on word magic, manipulation, one-sided talking points, loaded language, or other forms of irrationalities to convince others.  The left-wing intellectual trusts in human reason, even though such trust is bound to sometimes disappoint when dealing with the myriads of diverse humans, because s/he knows it is the only sure way to impart new knowledge, or reconsideration of old knowledge.  In other words, there is no quick fix, no magic Philosopher’s Stone, to bring masses of people over to one’s own left-wing personal convictions.  The building of consciousness is thus a slow but steady process, and is ofttimes maddeningly slow.  But quick fix shortcuts are ephemeral; what is affirmed today can just as readily be denied tomorrow.  For it is not the specific belief that counts; it is the proper process for coming to the belief that is crucial.  After all, it is indeed possible (as we all know from probability) to come to “correct” answers by incorrect or specious means.  Just randomly guessing the answer on a multiple-choice test all but absolutely guarantees that a certain percentage of the answers, e.g., 25% on a series of four-answer questions, are going to be correct, even if only chosen by randomness bereft of any actual knowledge!

 

Further, this process of correctly ascertaining new knowledge is also the most integrally democratic, i.e., democratically socialist.  It relies on the capacity of each to reason, and to be trained, educated, into the procedures for right reason.  It is this, the capacity of ordinary men and women endowed with ordinary intellectual skills to be able to be knowledge-seekers in themselves, that is the core tenet of a truly democratic socialism.  “We need no condescending saviors,” says the third verse of the Internationale, and it is eminently correct.  We ordinary people do not need arcane “vanguards,” infallible “leaders,” or magically endowed “saviors” to know what is best for us overall, although we as individuals, or even as groups of individuals, may stumble and fall sometimes, stumble and fall even badly.  This is well put in Abraham Lincoln’s noted dictum:  “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”  Yes, there will arise, even after a long historical slumber, the bold ten-year-old boy who exclaims, “The Emperor has no clothes on!” even as the sycophantic courtesans insist that he is dressed in the most exquisite finery.  Thus does a Hitler, or a Stalin, or a Pol Pot, become exposed for what he is.  That is what we of the left mean by the development of historical consciousness. And that is precisely where we, the left-wing intellectuals, have a role to play in furthering, developing, and nurturing this consciousness.  Through education, dissemination of knowledge (not, decidedly not, mere belief!), and advancing the processes of right reason, along with dissemination of awareness of those negatives which impede this—logical fallacies, rhetorical tricks, use of magic or loaded words, hyperbole, misleading half-truths.  That is why we, the left-wing intellectuals, are always students ourselves; learning both from books, and from life, what is the best way to continue our search for knowledge, and not just be content with resting on a cushion of comfortable belief.   

Letter to the Comrades of Central Indiana DSA (CINDSA)

 

Comrades,

 

The strength of Central Indiana DSA (CINDSA) has lain in its positive, non-ideological, pragmatic approach that has concentrated on such vitals as housing and union organizing, items that directly

affect the working and personal lives of ordinary working people.  This has enabled CINDSA to reach out positively into the Indianapolis community, and draw support from people who would not ordinarily be drawn to an organization espousing socialism.  With good results, as we’ve seen in the recent campaigns for seats on the Indianapolis City-County Council for its new term that starts in 2024.  While CINDSA members may not be “thoroughly informed” on the often arcane left ideological causes of DSA at the national level and in the key national chapters, and where CINDSA has also been blessed by not having warring national caucuses who are roiled on these issues, its non-ideological, pragmatic approach has paid off and enabled CINDSA to do good work, from what I can see from my limited vantage point of not being able to participate much in CINDSA.

 

I have of necessity to work a political life-killing second-shift job at Kroger, which, because it is in retail, also means not having weekends available either.  (However, politically I’m able to somewhat make up for this by being a member of my union at Kroger, UFCW Local 700, and participating in the movement to build a strong reform caucus within this union.)  I participate somewhat more at the national level through Facebook, through a network of left Friends there, and I keep abreast of what national DSA is doing.  Although I am not a formal member, politically I’m aligned with the traditional social-democratic caucus within national DSA, North Star, and a strong adherent of DSA founder Michael Harrington’s “left wing of the feasible.”  I too am essentially pragmatic, and strongly believe that positive results, far more than “correct” ideology, are what are crucial and draw ordinary working people to support DSA politics and proposals.  However, I will say bluntly that much of what comes out of national DSA and its leading chapters is ultraleft, often drivel, and is even a throwback to neo-Stalinism. 

 

CINDSA has not become embroiled on issues such as Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas War, which are very much dividing points for DSA at the national and key local levels.  That is in fitting with CINDSA’s pragmatic approach.  For myself, I do not believe the struggle in Ukraine is a “proxy war” between Russia and the US and NATO.  I support the Ukrainian drive to preserve its independence, and achieve national self-determination.  This is, to me, consistent with the Marxist principle of, above all, the right of small nations to self-determination, even independence, and to be free of Great Power bullying.  For this same reason, I support (support which is only theoretical at this time) the rights of Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Tibet, and Taiwan to their own rights of self-determination, and to be independent of China should their peoples wish.  I wrote this up in an article published earlier this year by the excellent left group, the British Trotskyist Alliance for Workers Liberty, which is linked here, and which I hope CINDSA comrades will read.  (https://workersliberty.org/story/2023-06-26/marxist-case-tibet-xinjiang-hong-kong-and-taiwan-independence; see also, published as an addendum to my post here, https://workersliberty.org/story/2023-06-26/stalin-1913-and-national-question-note) On Hamas-Israel, I consider what Hamas did on October 7, 2023 to be atrocious and reprehensible, and although I am not at all an automatic pro-Israel supporter, I do defend Israel’s right to defend itself (which Sen. Bernie Sanders also supports), and believe Hamas must be extirpated, as it is an Islamofascist entity.  I know I differ from some comrades here, as the issue came up with two of them on Facebook, and they defriended me over my views, but that’s no matter—friendships often come and go on Facebook.  What was appalling to me was DSA’s support of the antisemitic “Free Palestine” rally in support of what Hamas did that occurred the very next day, October 8, in New York City, and which both New York DSA and national DSA doubled down in support of.  No, comrades, terroristic attacks on civilians are not, decidedly not, “resistance” and “decolonization,” and anybody who asserts so has lost both moral compass and intellectual bearing!  Some things are just simply beyond the pale; so atrocious there is no way to ever justify or excuse them.  Examples are the Pearl Harbor attack of December 7, 1941; 9/11; and the October 7 attacks by Hamas.  No one, now matter how grievous it is alleged they acted (and in the case of the October 7 attacks, all the Israeli victims did was be in the wrong place at the wrong time), certain things are never, ever justified.  We must be morally and intellectually clear on that, in my opinion.  It is to the great discredit of both national DSA and certain key DSA chapters that justified or even celebrated the Hamas attack that they did so.  Such is to be rooting for, act as cheerleaders for, unconscionable mass murderers, and far too many in DSA were simply, egregiously, wrong here.

 

Comrades of CINDSA, you are youthful for the most part, far younger than am I, 77 years old now.  I am a veteran of the 1960s left, an active left force that existed long before many of you were born, and which also petered out from both an onslaught from the right (Nixon, Reagan) and, just as tellingly, from its own inadequacies, principally its substitution of moral indignation for concrete political programs.  Comrades, the great US early 20^th Century philosopher, Santayana, tells us so well:  “Those who do not remember history are condemned to relive it.”  So, please, Comrades, I urge you—learn the history of earlier left movements, both for the positive lessons they can give us, as well as for the negative ones.

 

On a positive note, youth is a time of vitality and questioning; however, it is also a time of know-it-all arrogance and stupidity.  Be willing to learn from older comrades, many of whom are resigning now in disgust from DSA, despite being members for decades, because of DSA’s present de facto pro-Hamas attitude.  This, Comrades, is no time for “Good riddance!” flippancy.  One of the great failures of the 1960s New Left was the great youth of its activists and leadership.  We of the New Left were young and arrogant, and so we made a lot of mistakes we needn’t make.  And in the end, following the fiasco of the 1969 SDS National Convention, literally went “poof!” overnight—from an organization 100,000 members strong to nothing!  That could happen too easily to DSA too—already it has lost 20% of its membership.  The youthful enthusiasm of those under 35 who are now drawn to DSA because of Israel-Hamas are not enough to make DSA grow if DSA alienates those of the population 35 and older, who are far more pro-Israel than those younger, with ignorance notable among the young, I’m sad to say.  A recent poll indicated that 20% of Gen Zers believe the Holocaust was a hoax!  67% believe that Jews as a class are “oppressors.”  Far too much of the US public believes there was an independent country called Palestine before the creation of Israel (as a fact, there was no such entity).  Comrades of CINDSA, “left” antisemitism is a big problem, every bit as significant, or even more significant, as Islamophobia. 

 

Which brings one more point.  What can I do now to participate well in CINDSA given my work limitations?  Well, for one thing, I could serve as an intellectual resource.  I’m well read on left literature, am a university graduate, am an extensively published writer in left magazines and on left websites, and have also taught adult education courses on China after Mao, Marxism, and the Communist Manifesto.  I also have a BlogSpot blog, “Politically Incorrect Leftist,” (politicallyincorrectleftist.blogspot.com), which I urge all of you to check out.  This Letter will also be posted there.

 

Finally, to end on a positive note, you Comrades of CINDSA are so much better than the hidebound, tired old leadership you replaced!  A leadership that no longer gave a damn about DSA, and certainly didn’t give a damn about you, young Comrades who wanted to carry on the organization.  You will be interested to know that these hidebound oldsters also were against me too.  Even though they had participated positively in my Marxism and Communist Manifesto classes, and was not the ogre I had been portrayed as being by the equally hidebound “peaceable religious progressives” of Indianapolis (with whom several of these old DSAers overlapped), I had committed the “unpardonable sin” of criticizing one of their cronies for designing and installing for Indianapolis DSA a most inadequate website.  In Indiana, overgrown high school clique that it is, one just does not criticize cronies!  And so, these hidebound “leaders” plotted against me.  I’ve published two blogs on what happened with them on my “Politically Incorrect Leftist” blog, the first one on August 14, 2010, “Dregs” (linked here:  https://politicallyincorrectleftist.blogspot.com/2010/08/dregs_14.html), and a second one that drew on the critical testimony of a lifetime resident of Indianapolis pointedly noting he’d never even heard of DSA here before meeting me.  This second blog, published on February 17, 2011, with the pointed subtitle, “Letter from One of ‘the Masses’” is linked here:  https://politicallyincorrectleftist.blogspot.com/2011/02/dregs-aftermath1-letter-from-one-of.html, I bring up this old history not to re-fight old sectarian battles, but to let you know, much younger Comrades, that roiling conflicts with the hidebound “old ‘progressives’” are nothing new here in Indianapolis, or in Indiana, truly a State of Mediocrity!  (Which the dictionary tellingly defines as “not good enough.”)  I hope you young Comrades will check out these blogs of mine, and realize the fight for a good, effective left confronts many obstacles, some of them even internal.  So, thank you, Comrades, good luck, and keep up the good fight!

 

In solidarity with you,

Comrades of CINDSA! 

 George Fish,

DSA member

since 1996