Harold Cruse: 1916-2005

Harold Cruse, one of the most influential political thinkers in my life and one of the most underappreciated Americna cultural critics ever passed away yesterday. Cruse was one of the few postwar American thinkers who with equal force could criticize the cultural politics and posture of the 1960s while simulataneously deriding the idiotic sectarianism and tunnel vision of late twentieth century communism. In my mind, he was always one of the great rejoinders to the derisive continental derision-'why is there no important socialist thinker in America." If there are any RG readers left out there following our not-so-brief hiatus, I urge you to check out his brilliant (and often funny) "The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual." Below is the NYT Obituary:

Harold Cruse, Social Critic and Fervent Black Nationalist, Dies at 89
By CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT

Published: March 30, 2005

arold Cruse, an outspoken social and cultural critic who was best known for his angry collection of essays, "The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual," died Saturday in Ann Arbor, Mich. He was 89. The cause was congestive heart failure, his companion, Mara Julius, said.

Largely self-educated and widely read, Mr. Cruse taught African-American studies at the University of Michigan and was one of the first blacks to get tenure at a major university without a college degree. He ranged over many subjects in his writing: politics, radicalism, music, culture and the situation of black people in America.
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In "Crisis" he summed up a set of positions that left him isolated from almost everyone else in the political spectrum of the mid-1960's.

He was against integration. "Integrate with whom?" he asked. He deplored the black-power movement as being all slogans and no political program. He opposed the back-to-Africa campaign, although he had grudging admiration for Garveyism. Despite a brief association with the Communist Party, he abominated Communists and liberals - in particular, Jewish intellectuals, whom he blamed for black anti-Semitism. He was critical of almost everyone, from James Baldwin to Ossie Davis to Lorraine Hansberry, for accepting too readily the premises of white culture.

He concluded that blacks must form their own political, economic, social and cultural base to work on all fronts toward an accommodation with capitalism as it was modified by the New Deal.

Mr. Cruse's book stirred up strong reactions in many quarters. But Christopher Lasch wrote in The New York Review of Books that he agreed with book's thesis, as he put, "that intellectuals must play a central role in movements for radical change." A new edition of "Crisis" will be published next month.

A year after its original publication, Mr. Cruse was asked to lecture at the University of Michigan, where he became involved in the African-American studies program until his retirement in the mid-1980's as professor emeritus.

Harold Wright Cruse was born in Petersburg, Va., on March 8, 1916, and moved with his father, a railway porter, to New York City as a young child. After graduating from high school, he worked at several jobs but was ambitious to become a writer. He served in the Army in Europe during World War II.

After the war, he attended the City College of New York briefly but never graduated. In 1947, he joined the Communist Party and wrote drama and literary criticism for The Daily Worker, although he was never doctrinaire. In the 1950's, he wrote several plays, and in the mid-1960's he was co-founder, with LeRoi Jones (now Amiri Baraka), of the Black Arts Theater and School in Harlem.The more he learned about the arts, the more he deplored what he saw as a white appropriation of black culture, particularly as exemplified by George Gershwin's folk opera "Porgy and Bess." He called for blacks to embrace their cultural uniqueness.

His later books include "Rebellion or Revolution?", "Plural but Equal: A Critical Study of Blacks and Minorities and America's Plural Society" and "The Essential Harold Cruse: A Reader" edited by William Jelani Cobb with a foreword by Stanley Crouch.

In addition to Ms. Julius, his survivors include two half sisters, Shirley Toke, of Richmond, Va., and Catherine Jones, of Petersburg.

How Did Our New Secretary of State Ever Get Tenure After This?

While many of you have seen this, we at restlessgeist feel that it is important given the celebration of Condolezza Rice's brilliance and future as Secretary of State to post this review of her 1984 book, "The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, 1948-1983: Uncertain Allegiances." Written by Josef Kalvoda, an eminent historian of Eastern Europe, it appeared in the December 1985 American Historical Review, THE preeminent journal of history in the world. As an avid reader of academic book reviews, I have to say that this quite frankly ranks as one of the two most brutal I have ever seen. Especially damning and funny comments have been italicized for your pleasure. Note the obvious objectivity of the author as expressed in his thinking that Condi is a man-he obviously has no clue who she is-enjoy!


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To write a scholarly study on the relationship of the Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak army without access to relevant Czechoslovak and Soviet documents is difficult. Therefore, much of this book by Condoleezza Rice is based on secondary works. His thesis is that the Soviets directly influence military elites in the satellite countries, in addition to the Soviet Communist party interacting with the domestic party. Rice selects Czechoslovakia as a case study and attempts to show the role of the military as instrument of both national defense and the Soviet-controlled military alliance.

Rice's selection of sources raises questions, since he [sic] frequently does not sift facts from propaganda and valid information from disinformation or misinformation. He passes judgments and expresses opinions without adequate knowledge of facts. It does not add to his credibility when he uses a source written by Josef Hodic; Rice fails to notice that this "former military scientist" (p. 99) was a communist agent who returned to Czechoslovakia several years ago. Rice based his discussion of the "Sejna affair" (pp. 111, 116, 144) largely on communist propaganda sources and did not consult writings and statements by former General Jan Sejna who had access to Warsaw Pact documents and is the highest military officer from the Soviet bloc to defect to the West since World War II.

Rice's generalizations reflect his lack of knowledge about history and the nationality problem in Czechoslovakia. For example, in 1955 Czechoslovakia was not yet "the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic" (pp 83, 84). In May 1938 Ludvik Svoboda was serving in the Czech army, not organizing a Czech military unit in Poland. In the fall of 1939 he was captured by the Soviet invading forces in eastern Poland; he did not "[escape] to the USSR" (p. 43). Rice's discussion of the "Czechoslovak Legion" that was "born during the chaotic period preceding the fall of the Russian empire" (pp. 44-46) is ridiculous. (It was "born" on September 28, 1914.) He is clearly ignorant of the history of the military unit as well as of the geography of the area on which it fought.

Rice claims that "Czechoslovaks are supposedly passive and consider resistance to invading forces unnecessary and dangerous, preferring instead political solution" p. 4). First, there are Czechs and Slovaks but not Czechoslovaks. Second, history shows that Czechs resisted the invading Prussians in 1866, Russia, France and Italy. In 1919 Czechs and Slovaks fought the invading armies of Bela Kun in Slovakia. In 1939 and 1948, "the Czechoslovak president, Edward Benes, ordered his troops to the barracks," writes Rice. "[Alexander] Dubcek and Svoboda were, then just following precedent. Czechoslovak passivity meant that the decision of 1968 was preordained" (pp. 4-6). Nothing, indeed, is preordained in history. Moreover, Benes in 1939 was no longer president but was teaching at the University of Chicago.

In comparing Poland in 1981 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, Rice does not mention the obvious: whereas Soviet troops have been garrisoned in Poland since the end of World War II and, therefore, an invasion of Poland was unnecessary, the main objective of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia was to force Dubcek's regime to accept the stationing of Soviet troops in the country.

The writing abounds with meaningless phrases, such as is its "last word": "Thirty-five years after its creation, the Czechoslovak People's Army stands suspended between the Czechoslovak nation and the socialist world order" (p. 245).
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AWESOME! All I know is, if my first book is reviewed like this, the best job I can hope for is at Northern Texas State University at the Yukon Territories.

What Is to Be Done?

A week ago today, America (seemingly, there are still a lot of disenfranchisement issues out there) for the first time legitimately elected George W. Bush as its President. With “the people at (his) back,” Bush and exit polls showing a return of “moral issues,” look ready to steamroll into existence the most radically pro-wealth, antidemocratic and socially regressive agenda (not to mention misguided foreign policy) since Grover Cleveland’s second administration. According to most, but not all of the leading Democrats, punditry (Bob Herbert has been the key exception here) and many usually intelligent leftwing bloggers (those that haven’t been even more idiotically exploring the constitutional possibilities of the secession of American Coastopia), we lost because of the rise of Evangelicals and their concern with moral issues like the “preservation of marriage” and “life.” They argue, that, “gays cost us the election” (subtext: I liked queer people so much better when Queer Eye’s Carson was telling me not to wear blue with black than when they actually demanded their constitutional rights). That, the party must veer rightward to capture the ubiquitous (and monolithic) southern white man, who likes his God and guns but doesn’t like his gays (for more on “gays cost us the election,” see Securityrisk’s brilliant analysis of a few days ago). According to Astrogeist (see his recent “Popular Front” in this forum) this is a misconceived choice. He is wrong—it is a choice, one that is being played out in Congressional caucuses and local party headquarters as we speak—it is just the incorrect one.
Why then did we lose this election (and let the last one become stealable)? The answer is simple. We lost because we didn’t want to win—at least not as much as the other side did (I do not mean to sound preachy, we all deserve blame, myself as much, if not more than, anyone else). We lost because we substituted celebrity endorsements for political organizing. We lost because we thought that our arguments and policies were naturally better—or more to the point, that people’s local and historic context did not and does not matter. We lost because we continue to believe, against all evidence to the contrary, that ‘speaking truth to power,’ has anything to do with politics. We lost because we inevitably gave up on the parts of the country that need us most. We lost, not because we supported gay marriage, but because we did not support it enough. We lost because we’ve been painted as the party of the elite—and it’s true. While we are still less (though not by that much anymore) the party of the capitalist elite than the Republicans, we are the Party of the cultural elite. I do not mean this in a David Brook-ish sense, but rather in a purely political-economic one. Most Americans see no difference between the capitalist and cultural elite (and really, with people like Paris Hilton and Donald Trump blurring the lines, who’s to blame them) and thus (rightly) identify us much more with wealth and privilege than they do the other side. We lost because we refuse to utter the word ‘class,’ and alienate our own financial backers and “responsible capitalist” friends. We lost because inevitably the first people we blamed for our loss are those ‘backwards rednecks out in the scary red states.’ We lost because, over and over again, we substituted posture for politics, style for substance.
What, then, is to be done? First, we must truly want to win. I do not mean want to win because we’ll feel more comfortable with our European friends or because the thought of ‘uneducated and irrational Evangelicals’ controlling the federal government makes us squeamish. No, by wanting to win I mean admitting to ourselves that we must work two, three, four times as hard as the other side—we are on the side of history, but history shows us that we always must work harder, be better organized and more politically sophisticated to have any chance in hell. At the moment we are not doing this, we (I) are sulking, bitching about irrational masses, dreading what the rest of the world thinks of us, despairing the “obvious fact that this is a center-right” country, calling for the secession of the enlightened states of New England and the West Coast. Over the course of the past year, while many of us worked hard and devoted our energies and talents, most (especially myself) did not do enough. Hitherto, most of us thought that the other side’s monopoly on information, pulpit of the federal government and control of political discourse could be overcome with truth, a few days of getting out the vote (again, I blame myself here decidedly more than anyone else) and its own contradictions. We must rid ourselves of the notion that historical and local context does not matter, that given a choice people will always vote their economic interests. People will vote (and organize and revolt) over their economic interests, but only if we are successful in dislodging hundreds of years of efforts, ranging from race-baiting, to Jesus pandering to gay-bashing, to keep people from voting with their interests as a class against another class. This cannot, and should not happen over night, but it can happen much quicker than many think. Only though, if we devote ourselves to the mundane and quotidian efforts of changing and organizing people, person by person, workplace by workplace, town by town, etc.. We must not, at all costs, ever waver on issues of Civil Rights. When people see us selling out those we claim to represent—be they African-Americans, gays and lesbians, women or the poor—how can they be expected to think that they won’t go to the chopping block the minute their issues and rights are deemed ‘unpopular’ by Gallup. We must no longer temper our inclinations to use the term ‘class,” and more importantly, to engage in ‘class warfare.’ Class warfare and conflict is the most potent organizing principle in modern human history, the GOP has been using it for years—it’s time we did too. By doing this, not only can we fight fire with fire, but we can help dislodge the image of the Democratic Party as an eastern elite while simultaneously awakening people’s desire for their own economic justice. To do this though, we must be willing to distance ourselves from, even alienate our “responsible capitalist” friends who love their gay sons and maybe even accept their daughter’s black husband but can’t stand the notion of repealing NAFTA or their janitors engaging in collective bargaining It is these people who should have to make a tough choice whether to remain in the party, not gays, African-Americans, the working-class and the poor. We must never blame our losses on those who will suffer most from them, but rather blame ourselves, ask ourselves what could we have done better. Finally, we must treat politics in this country and the world not as a dinner party conversation, t-shirt slogan or hipster posture, but as the true life and death struggle that it is.

Word of the Day: Mammon

As defined by the OED, mammon is the biblical term that implies the corrupting and injust influence of wealth and the pursuit thereof, usually the result of the work of satan. As in, "The Republican Party is the party of mammon." Or, "the redistribution of wealth from poor to rich is the work of mammon."

I like the possibilities for a good slogan here.

Dangerously Antidemocratic (and anti-intellectual to boot)

No, this is not about the Bush administration's war on voting rights. Or the dangerously unreported lack of vote counting and voter impediments across the country on Tuesday, or even the idea of holding elections in "most of" Iraq. No, in the same spirit that moves progressives to understand the necessity of criticizing their own country more than others that are perhaps more guilty of human rights violations, etc., this is about a (hopefully) small, but all too vocal section of the Democratic Party and left that I am increasingly ashamed to be associated with.
Over the past 5 days there has been a chorus of anti-democratic rhetoric coming from many corners of the party. Examples include, "those backwards rednecks shouldn't be allowed to vote," "only people with college educations should get the right to vote," "voters should have to pass a test on issue awareness.," etc.. Gee, how come we get painted as elitist?
This rhetoric is some of the most shameful talk coming from the party (though the "gays cost us the election" movement is right up there) since before the scapegoating of "welfare moms" and the Moynihan Report, since, in fact, the party was largely controlled by its southern wing in the pre-New Deal days (see any irony there). Why is it shameful? Besides the obviously oligarchal underpinnings, complete anti-intellectal stance toward why people vote, disavowal of the central principals that make many of us wedded to the party, and its utterly elitist and class determined logic, it is also a classic example of the self-satisfaction of "intellectuals" in this country since the end of class-based political analysis in the early 1970s (for more on this, see Terry Eagleton, Adolph Reed, Teresa Ebert, etc.). Isn't it nice to blame all those backwards and illogical legions in those scary and ignorant red states that we could never, ever live in. I voted for Kerry, I bought a "beat Bush" T-shirt, it can't have anything to do with me and my role in the changing of American political discourse, economy and reality. If (other) Americans just weren't so ignorant I'd feel a lot more comfortable when I travel to Europe. It's a good thing we're raising our kids to shop at Whole Foods instead of Wal-Mart, a least they won't turn out like those hillbillies. Oh wait, my 401(k) is dependent upon Wal-Mart and Sodexho stock? Fuck, oh well, those ignorant yokels don't deserve more than $5.75 an hour anyway.

A Bit of Advice From C. Vann Woodward

C. Vann Woodward, perhaps America's greatest historian, once wrote the following words about the South that seem especially important for progressives to remember today.
"The expression 'Solid South' . . . is of questionable value. . . The solidarity of the region has long been exaggerated. Thus one New Yorker wrote in 1879 (or was that 2004?), 'Find what a Virginian or a Georgian is thinking on any question of national politics and you need not ask what a Louisianan or Texan is thinking." In point of fact though, there is "(N)o love lost betwen the . . . gentry and the . . . commoners, then or now."

Perhaps a little wisdom from the century's most astute observer of the South, perhaps even a little direction for the future mixed in? More to come.

Responsibility

Q. Why do people vote against their economic interests?

A. Let us recall these words from Lenin: "Is it because the economic struggle does not 'stimulate" them to this, because such political activity does not 'promise palpable results,' because it produces little that is 'positive'? No. to advance this argument, we repeat, is merely to shift the blame to the shoulders of others, to blame the masses for our own philistinism, We must blame ourselves, our remoteness from the mass movement; we must blame ourselves for being unable as yet to organize a sufficiently wide, striking and rapid exposure of these outrages."

Question for Democratic Party

Question: Why the hell didn't the Dems have challengers at every Republican Precinct in Ohio today challenging votes. Two good things come out of it. 1) Less GOP votes are counted initially and thus the numbers look different at 2:51 AM on Wednesday morning. 2) Once, just once in my life, I would like to see how middle-class white voters feel when their vote is not counted or think they might have been disenfranchised. Just once, lets see how it feels.

Fuck this Shit; Or Spin in Action

11:39 PM Eastern

I'm sick of listening to newscasts. Bush needs Ohio just as much as Kerry does-even money on Kerry taking New Mexico and Nevada versus Bush taking Iowa and Wisconsin at this point. Yet, every single newscast is saying that only Kerry truly needs Ohio. This, my firends, is a lesson in good spin-Democrats need to take note, Republicans are kicking our asses here.

The Banality of Disenfranchisement

More general observations from the 6th Ward in Toledo to come, but my first impression upon arrival this morning was this-African-American and poor disenfranchisement is, more often than not, more banal than anything. No intimidation here, just poll workers who don't know when to give a provisional ballot or not. No police road blocks, just 3 precincts voting in the same location with long lines-result: people arrive 30 minutes before work, get in line, wait 20 minutes and find out they are at the wrong "precinct" the correct one being 10 feet and 30 minutes of waiting away. I don't know about you, but when I''ve voted in a polling place with more than one precinct (tend to be more wealthy than where I was today), the marking of which line was incredibly obvious. In Toledo today, the marking was virtually inexistent. This is the definition of disenfranchisement-one class of people being given different and harder circumstances to vote-nothing illegal-remember, for at least 70 years there was nothing illegal about a grandfather clause or a poll tax.