Well, Kelley dear, speaking of ignorance, in the world of NYC gangs "gang banging" does not have the meaning you have given it, but rather of belonging to and participating in gang rituals and activities. I understand that one is supposed to have acquired all one's knowledge of these matters by reading books in academic libraries, but I have had the misfortune [from LBO point of view] of having considerable amounts of actual firsthand experience with young -- a dare I say, male adolescent -- members of numerous NYC gangs, and hey, I remember their vernacular a whole lot better than I anticipate the spins of the vocabulary of academic discourse. As for the rest of your little riff, I will be damned if I can even follow all that you have imputed to me about circle jerks, cocks and limp rag dolls.
> you suggested was the situation of anarchist women. according to you women
> who are only there for display and, therefore, couldn't possibly have their
>
Oh, excuse me Just like I denied Bernadine Dohrn, et. al., their agency as female Weather_man_, and Squeeky Fromm and the followers of Manson their agency -- all because I described Halloween activities masquerading as politics as "male adolescent' activity. Do you have a clue (should I spell it 'klew'?) to just how silly this all sounds?
> and the cherry, syrup, nuts, and whipped cream on top was the ignorance of
> 1. adolescence 2. women's history in revolutionary social movements and 3.
>
Since when did "free association" become a basis for an argument? May I be so bold as to point out, without first asking your permission, that you know not a single them about my knowledge of any of these topics, or even of my experience with them; that all of this is imputed to me on the basis of my description of putting on a black mask, waving a black flag and breaking Starbucks' windows as "male adolescent' activity. If you want to defend those actions, be my guest; but it is tiresome, to say the least, to have just about sin you can imagine imputed to me on the basis of a single sentence that you have danced around for paragraphs without every addressing.
> all, of course, while bemoaning the fact that the stupid buoyz just don't
> appreciate those who came before them
>
I could care less who they appreciate and don't appreciate. I do care that, in the name of revolution and newness, they play the same old stupid song, getting the same completely self-destructive and counter-productive results. That makes it just that much harder to do successfully organizing against the WTO, etc. Historical amnesia doesn't strike me as a virtue, but it really doesn't matter; what matters is what you do now.
so, i take it you don't have to understand "them" but they have to
> understand you. and, when one of us, criticizes you for your extremely
> devious rhetorical tactics you find it is perfectly okay to dismiss us
>
I take it that the "one of us" is you, speaking about yourself in the third person. I don't know if this counts as an "extremely devious" rhetorical tactic, but in any case, I think I understood quite well what you said: that because you disagreed with what I had to say about -- shit, it is a pain in the ass to refer to the actual statement so many times -- wearing black masks, waving black flags and breaking Starbucks windows being a "male adolescent" activity, but didn't actually want to take on the burden of defending it as real politics, it was easier to play the arbiter of feminism and guardian of women's voices, and accuse me of appropriating them. I take it back: there is nothing extremely devious, much less even half-way clever, about the use of such a tried and true rhetorical device.
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20001105/155a80e7/attachment.htm>