On both Pen-l and LBO recently there have been short posts which included the phrase "These are serious questions." None of these posts contained any serious effort to show the seriousness of the question by at least outlining a possible answer. I simply do not accept the good faith of this position. No one can seriously desire an answer to any question without having in mind some sort of answer to that question.
Now there can, of course, be simple requests for knowledge -- which carry their seriousness on their face. What was the name of the woman who invented the cotton gin? What was the date of Babeuf's execution? What are the most important sources for labor activity in the U.S. south prior to WW 1? And so forth.
But: How can we make a revolution in the United States? What should progressives in the U.S. do to follow up on the Battle of Seattle? Do you think that all U.S. workers are the same? Those are not serious or even honest questions unless the questioner is willing to commit him/herself to an answer of some sort. Otherwise they are mere redbaiting or Platonic (i.e., as Bertrand Russell noted) fascist harpings?
Or perhaps merely more hip versions of that 19th century bit of doggerel, "Let me sit in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man."
Carrol Cox