Max Sawicky wrote:
> Who are you to call John Reed, Louis Fraina, and Emma Goldman
> dilettantes? Or, why do you think a bald assertion like this is
> persuasive?
I did not call Reed, etc. dilettantes. I said "Reds" portrayed them as dilettantes. As to who am I, if you want to get personal, I have several family members assassinated, died in prison and shot for their left wing activities and I personally have taken my share of persecution from Western imperialism. Still, what does that have to do with my observations. Does one have to have been a former president to criticize Clinton?
> > Very noble. Loyalty to some one who was not loyal.
> > One has a responsibility to choose one's friends
> > carefully. Friendship
> > and debts, unlike family, are made by choice and not fate.
>
> More unwisdom of the ages. Debts are often not incurred by
> choice.
>
> As for nobility, self-righteousness is no less a moral pretense.
> The abiding sin of the campus left in the U.S. from the 60's to
> presently is that of self-righteousness. Moral judgement is more
> faulty, the greater the distance in time and place. My own
> little form of penance is to try and exercise restraint in this
> regard.
>
Typical rationalization of a leftist who ran out steam. Who is being self-righteous? It is simple logic that a personal debt cannot be use to amortize a social wrong.
>
> > In the Chinese revolution, many families were split
> > along political
> > lines. Sons angainst fathers, brother agaianst brothers
> > If Beatty owed Kazan, then Beatty's posture was merely
> > self defense rather than noble.
>
> WB needs no self-defense now. So his gesture to Kazan cannot be
> explained on that basis.
It certainly cannot be explained on your basis. Why doesn't Beatty need self-defense now? Money cures all?
>
> > > I was fascinated to note the audience reaction. ...
> >
> > What you noticed was the televised rebirth of the
> > UnAmerican Committee.
> > The night of the living death of McCarthyism. . . .
>
> This is simple hysteria.
I suppose you would call it the great healing process. It's hysteria to see a right wing resurgence?
> > Max, you are too soft on Beatty whose Hollywood liberalism is
> derived
> more from guilt than from faith. Beatty used his bogus political
> capital for an evil purpose to get out of Faustian corner.>
>
> I've never stopped being amazed at the Internet's predilection
> for rendering instant long-distance moral judgements, garnished
> with 50 cents of amateur psychology, on perfect strangers.
>
This is really a stupid rebuttal to two perfectly straightforward sentences. You are the one who used the internet to defend the indefensible to perfect strangers in the first place . Morality has nothing to do with personal intimacy. If as clear a case as Kazan's needs more understanding before judgment, then everything is moral. All I accused you of is being soft. Must have touched a deep nerve.
Henry C.K. Liu