>Why does he have to? He's a tireless, intelligent, well-read, and
>generous critic of U.S. imperialism, a thoroughly admirable writer
>and human being. How many other people can you say that about?
Good on ya, Doug! And while I'm at it, good on Nathan, too, for this:
>Why the Left wants to find enemies everywhere and mold allies into those
>enemies, I don't know. It's an odd and destructive psychological problem.
>Probably the most serious one on the Left and probably the biggest reason we
>fail.
And John for this:
>many on this list seem to have have bought into a leftist version of what
>>Chomsky refers to "the system of mystification" which insures the
>continuing >management of public discourse by elites.
And to Ange's theme that:
>all claims about unity are founded on exclusions, including yours and my
>own -- >i've noted this now three times.
Yeah, but let's not chuck in some a priori inhibition to possible, meaningful, sincere and potent unities, eh? Unity is what works, I reckon. All we gotta do is unify by judicious exclusion, I reckon.
I say the job is articulately to identify ourselves such as to exclude what the vast majority would themselves exclude, or not mind excluding (I reckon you'd get some serious agreement on a long list starting sorta like this: TRIPS, Commodification of ever more, annihilation of democratic/public space, tendentious exceptionalism [Kyoto and ILO marginalisation, land-robbing like Mexico's Article 27 amendment], cop aggression, backroom secrecy, exclusion of third-worlders from debate, emerald passes, definition of labour and environmental concerns by trade/finance discourse, the volatility of systems based on untrammelled capital flows, the implicit assumptions upon which neoliberal rationalism is based - and the knee-jerk idea that when hundreds of thousands of people hit streets all over the globe, it ain't valid and important).
Lotsa people reckon stuff like this is of concern, and I doubt any of it would have alienated anyone had it been the gist of a speech on the day (I dare say much of it was, and to the heartfelt applause of greenies, anarchists, unionists, socialists and left-liberals alike, I'll bet). Once those united on that lot get their way, let the chips fall where they may, I reckon - we'd be somewhere else then, and it ain't no use talking about it now.
Cheers, Rob.