Obviously, Carrol Cox, Michael Hoover, John Mage, I, etc. don't pass Justin's purity test because we don't think it necessary to repeat "rejection of Stalinism ad nauseam":
At 10:29 AM -0400 7/7/00, JKSCHW at aol.com wrote:
>In any case, rejection of Stalinism, by which I do not mean the cult
>of personality, worship of the Father of Peoples, but rather support
>for the kind of political system that he and his epigones created,
>is not "baiting." It is a moral and political necessity. That system
>is not worth fighting for. It was worth fighting against--I mean by
>the workers. The grounds and means on which the US and the other
>capitalist powers opposed it were different and themselves
>contemptible. It will be necessary to repeat this ad nauseam as long
>as people on the left don't get it, as long as there are apologists
>for North Korea and nostalgia for the FSU.
At 1:13 PM -0400 7/7/00, kelley wrote:
>firstly, it wasn't a lecture. it was "data" and it should be
>addressed as such: limited empiricism of the kind you engaged in
>when you said that your experience talking to people suggested X
>about their political position. no, you don't recognize
>"ambivalence etc" because, well, you wouldn't write it AS
>"ambivalence, etc" and expect that to suffice for your understanding
>of people's ways of thinking on the topic. you would actually be
>capable of fleshing it out. writing it as "ambivalence, etc"
>suggests to me you don't have a clue what a taxicab driver or bedpan
>washer might fucking tell you about how to address the healthcare
>problem in this country.
Apparently, I don't pass Kelly's purity test either. Forget my activist work -- it just doesn't measure up! Obviously polling data are more important than strike solidarity and other micro-micro-micro political work! Compared to Kelley, what do I know about Americans?
So be it. It's a big tent here on LBO, really, with so many open-minded people committed to irony & skepticism. :)
Yoshie