if we decided to make this a publicly owned list, we'd need some rules for how and when to boot ppl off right? would you wanna make it hard or easy? say we all agree that this list should have as its goal the bridging of economic and cultural discourses, would you want to make it hard or easy to turn it into a list for the discussion of one to the exclusion of the other? would you wanna have all 340 of us participating in discussion about list policy? goshdurn nightmare if'n ya ask me.
so there's some inherent problem with two senators (6 yrs) balanced by reps according to population in the house of congress? how's that? if i'm not mistaken i think the brits first ripped off the idea of bicameral legislature from the Iroquois Confederacy. wow, now there was a haven of bourgeois liberalism and man o man were they ever defenders of the cash nexus.
and not only that, wasn't there something about the study of Greek constitutions as a model? now they weren't capitalist, were they? oh but they those nasty Greeks they were part of the western tradition and were certainly a class society, so toss it all out the window and start from scratch. from nothing? lotsa luck. and if you're going to toss the constitution, then why not everything?
furthermore, doug, a better criticism: change happened as quickly as it did because it was good for capitalism's mutations. and another furthermore, this style of argument where you maintain that we are revering the constitution--where'd you learn that from, Fred Harris?
Michael Perelman wrote:
> We should hold
>fast to these protections since we have so few, but reverence ....?
hardly out of reverence. that's NOT what anyone was calling for. but in the meantime, your solution is to toss them, dismiss as hopelessly corrupt, worthless? do you have some alternative? (pls see earlier post to doug for comparison to marx's analysis of capitalist d of l; he wanted to keep that but get rid of private property, right?)
furthermore, here's a list of things that i'd consider 'products' of corrupt bourgeois society and created by mostly men, more often than not, for the purposes of advancing their interests. yes indeedy all of them can be traced way back, but so can the principles of the constitution:
modern natural and the social sciences (your discipline, an integral part of your identity no doubt given your sig; an integral tool you use doug to do your work)
public schooling and the university (the main space within which you engage in something you probably love, find integral to your identity, and feel has something to contribute to the betterment of the world)
mass distributed magazines, newspapers, journals (which, no doubt, you read every day)
the factory system and the division of labor (which frees you up to do above)
mass transportation and mass communications (this forum)
the idea of privacy, respect for dignity of persons (which means that no one expects you to divulge your income unless you want; which also means that you likely imagine that most of the time your character won't be assassinated in this forum simply by virtue of the fact that you are human and not because of any particular credentials such as education, birth, etc; which also means that you assume that folks won't humiliate you for a typing error, or call you an idiot or something worse)
all of the above can be 'bad' things. they are not, however, bad things simply by virtue of the fact that they were part and parcel of the development of capitalism and its success. nor are they bad by virtue of the fact that they can and are used for the purposes of exploitation and oppression.
again, bad logic, spurious correlations. gets us nowhere. and it particularly gets us nowhere if no one ever thinks of alternatives and dismisses talk of them somehow thinks relentless criticism is enough. scores everyone lots of marxist street cred, but doesn't accomplish much.
and doug you have NOT answered my earlier post which has a pretty damn good argument against this nonsense of tossing the baby out with the disposable diaper.
again, how does anyone think they're going to order the good society? are we all just going to be naturally well-behaved in some groovy utopian future? everyone here honestly thinks the state is going to just wither away and that, in the meantime, you won't need some sort of constitution. no one's asking anyone to revere the constitution; rather, i'm suggesting that not only do you make a logical error you provide no alternative and refuse even to engage the questions. that's a big problem and one of the fundamental reasons why the left gets absolutely nowhere.
i love cul-de-sacs an' all but they is awfully bourgeois middle class so i rather not build my house on one!
kelley