>Given where we're at now, I tend to exactly this view, Kelley - I'm not
>sure about the definite article bit, but war has a way of laying naked our
>society's problems, the social distinctions to be made in terms of
>benefits derived and prices paid, and sometimes the horror has to be felt
>at home in order that we comprehend a little of what life elsewhere has
>been like for a long time.
this discussion has always been intended to be a discussion about how to talk to people outside the cloisters of the left. now, i suspect that you, rob
--would not be caught dead telling, say, Testosterone Central (my son's friends), the cashier at the market, the physician at the sports clinic, etc that we should just see this as an opportunity for left organizing.
--would not tell people to cheer up because this is the road to the revo if you were, say, hanging out at the bus stop shooting the breeze about the war with your neighbors.
--would not join anti war group in spite of the fact that you think their struggle is pointless, just so you could sniff out the best candidates to recruit. nor would you bray about how pointless it all is on an e-list, only to turn around and work alongside those who do not think it pointless at all.
given that i suspect that neither carrol nor yoshie tell people this, then i conclude that they are disingenuous--at best--for lecturing us about daring to want to talk about how to talk to people outside the cloister. and, worse, denying that this was what it was fucking about in the first place and, instead, turning it into a discussion about how to lobby congress or some other twaddle.
carrol and yoshie clearly must talk to people without taking the positions they take on this list. they clearly have to compromise. they clearly have to bite their tongues. they clearly have to work on ways to offer a more palatable left vision to those who have not be recruited already.
that they are hounding doug or anyone else about daring to do the same is downright ludicrous.
sorry that escaped everyone's attention.