>The failure of quite a few
>here to agree even that bombings are to be protested does constitute
a huge
>problem.
a huge problem for what exactly? the reasons I have for insisting against NATO intervention are numerous and, I happen to think, irrefutable. but simply because I think they are irrefutable does not suddenly make them universally held.
why not look at it from the perspective of an activist, as you claim to want to do?
i.e.., as an activist, I would look to convince those supporting NATO intervention to change their minds. as an activist, it would not be plausible to gather people into an anti-bombing alliance through a simple assault on the credibility or otherwise of those who are in favour of NATO intervention. why? because this is, however much we like it or not, the position of the majority of our countries' populations. the conflicts and ambivalence that is expressed by those on the list are the same as those experienced by most people.
and, even though I disagree strongly with those positions I know that they emerge and remain coherent so long as they are founded on what is an impossible situation: that there are numerous things that call out for action in the world today and the we as the left are not in a position to take action which would solve them. hence, it is tempting, often seductively so, for people to look to the institutions and structures of imperialism and bourgeois governments to take that action. that these machines only move to extend and reinforce their own logics, interests, etc, and *even though* everyone on the list knows this to be the case, the impulse to *do something* is what leads some to think that that logic can be evaded and the debt of this complicity never settled.
so: instead of treating those on the list who have a vastly different conclusion to my own about this process as if they are representatives of a competing leadership (over who?) to my own, as if deriding their credibility would induce 'the masses' to steer clear of them, I would think that a better approach would be to treat them, and all of us, as simply, in the most tormented way conceivable, as trying desperately to work through the contradictions we are faced with.
in short, that there are some people on this list who are in favour of NATO intervention (and I can barely count them on one hand), is only a problem if you think that it hindered something. it did not hinder raising discussion of campaigns and strategies against the war. quite the contrary. it did not hinder the discussion of an analysis of what is happening, much of which I've found invaluable. nor did it hinder a thoroughgoing assessment of the claims made by NATO, etc. so, I do not think you unsubbed because you were offended a the presence of pro-NATO intervention people on the list. and, if anyone truly believes this, then they are being naive.
if you are looking for a space in which to debate and then decide a unitary position, then a party is what you are looking for. a discussion list can't substitute for that need that you obviously feel. a discussion list is more commensurate with a public meeting in which you can make interventions, but you cannot insist, esp. in any a priori way, on unity.
I would prefer it if you had not unsubbed. I have enjoyed our conversations in the time I've been here; and I've enjoyed reading over your shoulder on other threads. I would have preferred it if you had simply apologised for the article in question, or retracted it, but as it is, in not doing so, I think you have placed something quite different over the aim of consolidating and expanding an anti-war movement.
angela