"Here in the US, if I say to a waitress (outside of NYC or other areas where they might be grad students): there is bloodshed at the bottom of this coffee cup, I appear to her to be insane. "
Well at least you admit you're an elitist. And I admit I'm kinda unusual in that I read a lot and try to understand the real deal, but as one who converses with all levels of class and political (un)awareness I can tell you that your idea, put a bit more down to earth would be understood by all manner of waittresses,(financially fragile white women), "busboys" (financially fragile black men), and cooks (Mexican men, who because of family bonds and multiple jobs are less financially fragile, but suffer surprised disillusionment). They know they're fucking fodder and they know they're better off than the woman cleaning chickens. Though my Mexican compadres are not political, they knew who the Sandinista's and the Zapatist's were when I asked, and they know the PRI are murderous thieves. That's a lot more than most boochies know. Personally, as I mentioned in another post, I express this reality of the embedded blood of Capitalism through the image of people dying for my sins (I may be poor, but still a creature of comfort) everyday. It's so much more mythic and those souls deserve a high ritual of acknowledgment, certainly from any Westerner. Coffee cups, well it's so Eliot. Your whole rap on Purists struck a nerve and I think it really functions to strengthen the real bad guys. I've worked on a couple of projects with a guy who's a "radical". I was soon forced to let him know that my having to pick him up and sort of expecting I might pick-up the lunch check cause he was a "lifer" activist was unexceptable and that I did not enjoy the hours as wage slave, and my time was just as valuable as his. Then at a Greens gathering I watched some "revolutionaries" hold up the kithen staff for an hour, without a thought. Later, my fellow delegate bragged about a group of them "screwing with the system" by making life miserable for some poor, low-wage woman at the near-by convenience store. More disillusioning, by far, was watching five or six "revolutionaries" bully and manipulate Robert's Rules to make sure that their preconcieved agenda was not tampered with by the warm-fuzzies. But boy, could they recycle! BTW-how's this for "from each according to their...whatever. I thought it was determinedly unleft when after receiveing an issue of CounterPunch with the logo about the evils of Babylon, I gathered my courage, with Vodka, I'm sure, and shot off a note about how that logo simply undermined the credibility and seriousness of a publication I liked because I was now finally(after years of soothing myself with left-leaning zines, relieved to find that others had ideas like mine and I was not crazy-which I thought was more the spirit of what Max was trying to convey when he made Doyle so mad), finally capable of my own editorializing but I liked CounterPunch because it Named the Names, and Told the Facts, and I never got a thank-you, let alone the free subscription I mentioned the next time I renewed. Hey, Solidarity Comrades! Anyway, it got so People-y after the Cockburnness settled in, I quit it anyway. And then there was one-LBO. Still Names the Names, and Tells the Facts. Don't get me wrong, I've worked with some fine people at the grass-roots. I guess my point is that I don't think purism, elitism, or Marxist theology are particularily revolutionary, but the idea that WE'RE ALL BOZOS ON THIS BUS is downright subversive, and I think if he were here, Marx would agree.
MAX: "You can call that idiot and tell him a) the Internet began as a government project; and b) a great part of the code that makes it work was written on a not-for-profit basis by a bunch of pot-heads." Well-DUH! My point was, at every turn, I'm hearing not damn lies, but desperate lies. I smell the big Spin. I smell preparation for deflation, getting ready for war on many levels. But, I could be wrong. NOT! Look, I feel it's my patriotic duty to monitor these scum, I'm not going to waste my time getting cut-off if I manage to be articulate.
"Some see the SM crash as a reasonable solution -- a "correction" -- to the "irrational exuberance."
I did keep getting the impression that the financial talking-heads were purposely talking the market down over the week-end. Were they simply trying to save face for their recent stupid advice or was business getting slow and this is how they get to sell more stuff? It could happen. If I could figure out that April was a good time to bale, surely they could.
"I'd say the LBO proprietary stox indicator is flashing a strong buy signal. Maybe it's different this time."
Hope not, I bet the ranch, in my own limited way, on Monday. I'm considering getting a part-time job and hope for 4000. And if the system collapes, oh well.
Smooches, Paula
Oh yeah, Louis, the simply fact that "Living Single" did not become a classic hit is proof positive the this nation is corrupted to the core with racism and sexism, but I do think that that fact has been used as a career path by enough people so that nuance has it's value when educating white folks. And that universal programs are the only way to support racial unity for class struggle. Working class whites have been screwed and sometimes emphasizing race plays right into the hands of the Big Cigars. I'd rather win than be right, I guess, and reality is messy. And I wish you'd get back into the Marx-Malthus thing cause your the only theory nit-picker I can pick up a clue from.
pms