>if all this is confusing only to me, i apologize for the waste of
>bandwidth! last one from me on this,
>
> --ravi
firstly, i haven't had time to respond to your very good questions. i started but too busy. secondly, it is really draining to have to repeatedly put forth the position, type all the disclaimes, because some folks here either enjoy that sort of thing, are lazy, or just don't give a shit about actually understanding what other people say.
iow, i can't really answer your questions since my answer is not doug's answer. that you have implied that it is, i'm just a little disgusted. how many times to i have to write it?
those who've branded doug as one who has resorted to a knee-jerk, strike- back position, as an advocate of violence along the lines of the shrub admin are wrong about that. it appears to be some sort of perseveration: it doesn't matter what is written; the responses don't address what is written.
i am also just disgusted at some here who exhibit a lack of any serious, anguished thinking about the position one takes. i know i look at all sides and seek out the holes in my arguments asking myself hard questions. i know others here do as well. you can see it in their serious thinking about the issues: i see seth, doug, michael pollack, max, others -even lou- really wrestle with the issues. but there are some responses here that present themselves in exactly the way Marx warned we shouldn't. those with ready-made answers who counseled that Marxists should stay out of the fray were called crude socialists:
[W]e wish to influence our contemporaries...The problem is how best to achieve this. In this context there are two incontestable facts. Both religion and politics are matters of the first importance in contemporary Germany. Our task must be to latch onto these as they are and not to oppose them with any ready-made system such as the _Voyage en Icarie_. [...] Nothing prevents us...from taking sides in politics, i.e. from entering into real struggles and identifying ourselves with them. This does not mean that we shall confront the world with new doctrinaire principles and proclaim: Here is the truth, on your knees before it...We shall not say: Abandon your struggles, they are mere folly; let us provide you with the true campaign-slogans. Instead we shall show the world why it is struggling....
from Letters from the Franco-German Yearbooks--a reply to Arnold Ruge's claims about the futility of engaging in actually existing political struggles.