I simply have to get off this addictive list for a while after the weekend (could someone remind me how?), and I hope Doug forgives this deliberate quota-buster in that light.
To Chuck:
A much appreciated post, Chuck! You've actually helped me lend shape to a couple of Derrida's bits'n'pieces (he'd probably disapprove, I s'pose). A little MacLuhan here (linearity is the message / our thinking is technologically determined), a little Marx there (the rhythm of life is the rhythm of the machines upon which we work our lives away), a little Innis here (the bias of media), and a little Shklovsky there (aesthetic formalistic defamiliarisation). Makes sense where I saw none before (have you ever considered translating Derrida for a living?) - not particularly new sense and a little to abstract for my tastes, but sense nevertheless.
For which, many thanks!
To Peter:
Your point is, of course, a biggie. I do suspect, though, that the Bolshevik Party's self-validating logic (say, as manifest from the April These on) led almost inexorably to a substitutionalism (an enduring party for a dissolving proletariat) that helped frame legitimately socialist concerns as counter-revolutionary. But, yeah, the Bolsheviks' aspirations were distorted by a pretty formidable array of inimical forces and events. And in the face of 'white' counter-revolution (and invasion), the military organisation of millions is, of course, necessary. A poser.
To Frances:
LOVE the Seussian Manifesto!
Best to all, Rob.