The heart of a leftist

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>etc.  see, deal is:  people are pretty ambivalent about a lot of 
>this.  and so you actually have to listen to people and figure out 
>how to approach the question instead of assuming from the get go 
>that you'll encounter nothing but resistance and rejection.  thing 
>is, you won't get what you want.  you won't hear support for 
>communist revolution, but you will hear a lot of disgust with the 
>way things are.  and if you don't beat them over the head with the 
>pessimism and with the constant attacks on the inadequacy of their 
>ways of thinking or expressing themselves, hey you might get 
>somewhere.  disheartening, difficult, distressing, and disagreeable 
>work.  yes, indeed.
>
>more fun to classify navel lint i suppose....
>
>kelley

Thanks for a lecture, but I know people's ambivalence, etc., and I 
"don't beat them over the head with the pessimism and with the 
constant attacks on the inadequacy of their ways of thinking or 
expressing themselves."  My activist work consists not of discussing 
the ins and outs of the Korean War on e-lists but of supporting local 
strikers, organizing protests against racial profiling, etc. 
Micro-micro-micro politics with which "support for communist 
revolution" or lack thereof should have very little.  What I'm 
worried about in this thread is less American people in general than 
American liberals & leftists (very loosely defined) & their political 
culture.  If leftists can't get over Stalin-baiting, it's no wonder 
that less politicized Americans don't get beyond ambivalence and 
fight a really good fight for what they need, be it health care or 
income support for the poor and the unemployed.

You also wrote, btw:


>Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 23:23:10 -0400
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>From: kelley <kwalker2 at gte.net>
>Subject: Re: RES: Korea's blessing
>
>At 10:50 PM 7/6/00 -0400, JKSCHW at aol.com wrote:
>>In a message dated 7/6/00 6:20:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
>>furuhashi.1 at osu.edu writes:
>>
>><< Very good, Justin.  Now, when will we ever see the USA withdrawing
>>its current forces from South Korea and all other countries?  How do
>>we make that happen?
>> >>
>>
>>We engage in anti-imperialist organizing and solidarity work, the usual deal.
>>To what exent thatw orks is debtable. In the Vietnam War movement we
>>succeeded after a long and bitter struggle. What sort of thing did you expect
>>me to say?
>
>i've given up.  i just tell 'em to eatme.  same diff.
>
>kelley

If this ain't pessimism, what is?  Or is this some kind of attempt at 
"irony"???

Yoshie