Lefty despair

[JBrown72073 at cs.com]

>Why are so many LBO-talkers obsessed with finding fault with "the 
>left"?  If leftists themselves don't like "the left," why should 
>anyone else?  Self-flagellation and self-deprecation are 
>unattractive.  It makes sense to flog "the left" ritually once we 
>cease to consider ourselves leftists, but, otherwise, it's 
>self-defeating.  Suppose we are interested in winning friends and 
>influencing people, as everyone here says we should be; then it makes 
>sense to stop saying that "the left sucks," which is like a salesman 
>saying, "Never buy this product -- I won't use it myself."
>- -- 
>Yoshie

Self-deprecation is a hell of a lot more attractive to me than 
self-righteousness.  Someone genuinely trying to figure something out is more 
attractive to me than someone who appears to have all the answers (and 
apparently was born with them.)  I'll cop to this: When I'm less sure, I'm 
more dogmatic.  Enybody else wanna cop-out? (as Etheridge Knight says.)

Jenny Brown