>>> Curtiss Leung <bofftagstumper at yahoo.com> 03/27/00 05:19PM >>>
If I'm beating a dead horse, I apologize. But I have
to respond to this.
Charles: You wrote:
> "Hate speech" is not my thing. You will have to ask
> someone who uses that term. I am for , as part of a
> workers program for election, socialists running for
> state power, outlawing fascistic racist or genocidal
> speech.
> And, no, Henry's comment was not fascistic racist or
> genocidal speech. It was typical e-mail list
> flaming, of the type that I have seen before
> many many times on this list alone. Methinks the
> effort is phony to portray Henry's comment above as
> worse than things I hear here all the time.
How's this then: calling for someone's 'summary intellectual execution' to my mind is proof enough of their proto-fascist tendencies.
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CB: How is it ? It is trying to make something out of nothing. Doug and Henry have said a lot of nasty things to each other. Doug would be a proto-fascist just as much as Henry by the basis for your conclusion.
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It is *not* usual email flaming,
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CB: Yes it is. You are still trying to make something out of nothing.
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and ABSOLUTELY NOT characteristic of the polemics on this list.
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CB: I've been on this list since its beginning, and it ABSOLUTELY IS characteristic of some polemics on this list.
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People have accused each other of willful misreading, being ignorant of/too reliant on sources, postmodernism, vulgar Marxism, left Hegelianism, bourgeosis liberalism, and infantile leftism, sometimes quite rudely. If you wait long enough, I might call someone a vulgar pro-situ or thoroughly decomposed spectacular imbecile.
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CB: That doesn't exaust the list of what people have called each other. Also, people have been summarily intellectually executed from the list. Remember Hugh Rodwell ? Doyle Saylor ? I'll send you a copy of what Doyle Saylor said about the current thread. It was not just SAID that they should be summarily intellectually executed from the list. They WERE summarily intellectually executed from the list. So, take that fact and stuff it up your reasoning above about "proto-fascism" .
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But this is something else.
I say it's near/proto-fascist speech, and your saying that you care only about fascist/genocidal speech, not hate speech per se is an equivocation on the order of objecting to "premature anti-fascism."
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CB: You'd have to call Doug a near/proto fascist by YOUR logic here.
I didn't say I only care about fascist racist/genocidal speech. I said only that would come within the exception to freedom of speech. Hate speech is kind of broad. Some hate speech is of great concern, but if it is not somehow linked to an ideology of genocide, I don't see denying it First Amendment protection.
Also, "hate" is ambiguous. Sometimes "hate" is appropriate. "Hate" speech about the New York police force murders today should be applauded. "Hate" is not always wrong. I hate capitalism. I should be rewarded, not punished for that.
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As far as being a bourgeosis in revolutionary's clothing goes, I remember Doug saying on more than one occasion that the goal was still to expropriate the expropriators. On the other hand, I remember Henry Liu advocating *day trading in foreign currencies* as a means of redistributing wealth. If that's a man on the inside, then he's a capitalist inside the left, rather than a leftist inside capitalism.
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CB: I'm not completely sure what you mean here. Seems to me that Doug is against capitalism. I have not accused him of being a bourgeois in revolutionary's clothing, although we are on different parts of the Left. I only addressed the issue that Henry's occupation as a Wall Street financier does not forclose his making authentic contributions to revolutionary struggle. Of course, the vast majority of finanicers do not. And my knowledge of everybody here is virtual, but based on virtual discussion, Henry is on the Left.
You will have to elaborate on why * day trading in foreign currencies* , if that is what Henry said, cannot be a means of redistributing the wealth. I mean if you sent the profits to Cuba or Viet Nam or some people in Harlem, it probably would be.
CB