>I have to say I appreciate your calm, reasonable
>tone and style of writing
Thank you. I appreciate that you noticed and mentioned this -- I try hard to be calm and reasonable. I believe that for most people being calm and reasonable when discussing politics takes a lot of effort and practice; certainly it does for me. But I believe it's extremely important to make that effort.
Everyone on a list like this shares the same objective: a world that's better, at least a little bit, for more people. I think it's important to keep this in mind, for several reasons.
First, we should have some humility about what exactly we're accomplishing here. The most critical element in getting to a better world obviously is going to be more and better organizing, not discussions on listservs. Something like this can be useful insofar as it supports more and better organizing, even if it's just theorizing about how to organize better or sharing interesting information. But beyond that we're not really doing anything particularly crucial. I don't mean it's terrible not to be doing anything particularly crucial -- about 98% of all human activity falls into this category. I just mean it's good to keep a sense of proportion when you're arguing about something in a situation like this.
Second, if you want to see a somewhat nicer world, it must be because you think people in general deserve to be treated with respect. We don't have the power right now to help many people who are being disrespected in life-threatening ways -- for instance, we can't force the Bush administration tomorrow to stop throwing roadblocks in the way of countries that want to buy or produce generic AIDS drugs. However, we do have the power, right now, to treat each other with consideration and respect. Why not start there? If someone is unable to treat other people with respect in a situation like this, it always makes me think he or she needs to develop more self-control and focus on what's actually important. (A lot of the time, I think the person who needs to develop more self-control and focus on what's important is me.)
Third, it's important because we're only ever going to gain the power to get a better world with more people. Therefore, people who are considering becoming involved in progressive politics have to find progressive politics appealing in some way. And since we don't really have money or status to offer to anyone, we'd better make sure that progressive politics is fun and welcoming and exciting and, on occasion, may even involve throwing horse sperm pies at NY Times reporters. One thing progressive politics better not do is seem to be filled with people screaming at each other and treating each other badly. No one will want to join up with that.
I have spoken.
P.S Peter, I haven't forgotten about that Hitchens article. I will comment on it whenever I get a chance.
__________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day http://shopping.yahoo.com