ratting on profs

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Thu Sep 19 11:52:54 PDT 2002


"Max B. Sawicky" wrote:
>
> If it isn't too obvious,
> such incidents, true or rumored, supply invaluable
> propaganda to Zionists and the Right.
>

I of course agree wholly with this. But to carry forward a position I first developed in respect to Weatherman, and which is applicable to the RCP, various anarchist trends, evolutionary psycholgy, Cooperesque carping from the sidelines, etc etc, leftists (and when we create a Left, The Left) have to learn to live with this sort of thing. Capitalism endlessly generates freakish positions (many of which, naturally, have some fragment of validity that can attract even quite rational and/or decent people), and on the whole "we" (when a we emerges) have to respond to such freakish positions not by frontal assault but by working to create a contrasting center of gravity in a mass movement which by its activity can undercut the appeal of the freakish.

A related matter. In the closed and somewhat stifling (family-like) space of maillists freakish positions and negative responses to them began to crowd out actual discussion of issues. Carrol



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