>Wojtek wrote:
>
>> A larger point is that many on the Left see symbols as more important
>than
>> reality, and for ideological reasons embrace positions that glamorize
>> poverty and find excuses for its social ills - which pushes it to take
>> abusrd positions (cf. defending the right of the homeless to squat in
>> public parks) that marginalize and alienate the Left from the working
>class
>> which has to deal with reality on every day basis.
>
>the only mob who have ever tended to glamorise poverty are the
>fransiscans and associated tendencies as far as i can tell.
>
I think that the nobility of poverty was a popular theme among some 19th century socialists. I appeal to more scholarly LBO-talkers to corroborate this, or shoot me down gently.
In any case, I don't think its fanciful to see the regretable validation of poverty in certain strains of left thinking, e.g. Greenish neo-ludditism. I'd guess that such ideas are very alienating to people who have been there, which I take to be part of Wojtek's point. We can still agree, though, that Giuliani is a total shit.
-d
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David Jennings SSS II
Agri-Services Labs CAES, UGA ------------------------------------------ "What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?" -- H. R. Clinton