> >Engaging in more of a dialog here with Withrow might give you some
> >insight into more subtle forces at work than blatant propaganda, and
> >this in turn could make you more effective politically.
> >
> >--
> >Paul Rosenberg
> >Reason and Democracy
>
> Well, look, the Spoons Marxism list used to be visited by
> right-wingers all the time. So in the middle of a discussion
> about the civil war in former Yugoslavia, we'd all of a
> sudden get a dozen bright people trying to refute a
> libertarian. People didn't join a Marxism list to hear
> that sort of nonsense and they would disappear.
That sounds like a horrible experience, but it's a worse analogy. James WIthrow is NOT a libertarian. However much may I disagree with him, he's more or less in the same moral universe as the rest of us on this list. Libertarians are not. That's a BIG difference. Simply calling him a "right-winger" does not make him one, it only reveals a limited capacity to engage with the mixed consciousness of people in the real world.
> I leave it up to Doug to decide what the character
> of LBO-Talk should be. If we end up with 3 or 4 more
> Withrows, I will sign off. This mailing-list is not
> unmoderated. On the second day Doug threw off a
> Trotskyist by the name of Hugh Rodwell because he
> got into his ritual incantation about the need to
> build a "revolutionary party."
But not *BECAUSE* he was a Trot, right?
> I can put up with Max Sawicky and Brad DeLong because
> they represent important trends in mainstream thought
> and are sharp debaters. Withrow I have no use
> for and this will be the last thing I say about him.
It seems to me that Withrow is an activist, rather than an intellectual. WAY too many activists have little or no interest in struggling with the ideas getting kicked around here. The list might suffer for it (in your opinion, certainly it would) but the Left would gain ENORMOUSLY if we eneded up with 300 more Withrows. Provided, of course, that you & your favorite debating partners didn't all pack up and leave.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"