> I know I've said this before, and I'm sure that anyone who had the
> time and ability to do a corpus analysis of this list would find that
> about 50% of the debate (a huge proportion of a very high volume list)
> inevitably reverts back to the question of which capitalist politician
> to vote for, and for a list that is supposedly open to all leftist
> alternatives that is really shocking.
Why is this shocking? I've seen posts from lots of leftist alternatives on the list, from anarchist -- don't vote at all -- to Nader supporters to Kerry supporters (no Bush supporters that I can recall, but that's not a leftist alternative, I suppose). If 50% of the posts concern which capitalist politician to vote for (by the way, I would classify Nader as a capitalist politician; I don't know if you would), I suspect this is probably because it is an election year in the U.S. and voting is understandably a current topic.
There aren't as many discussions on fundamental theoretical questions, such as what is right and wrong with Marxism, or socialism, or other such topics, but I guess that's because the people who are posting (of course there are lots of lurkers) are either not particularly interested in those subjects, compared with immediate questions about current affairs, candidates, etc., or are tired of these theoretical discussions. But I suppose that the frequencies of appearance of subjects on the list reflects pretty accurately the current interests of the members who post. Anyone who wants to do theory or delve very deeply into Marxism is presumably free to write a post, run it up the flagpole, as it were, and see if anyone salutes.
Actually, I think the relative lack of interest here in discussing Marxism and other traditional left theories reflects pretty accurately the present state of mind of U.S. leftists in general. I too would rather appreciate seeing some more discussion of the basic principles people are using to judge which candidate to vote for, or not vote for, but I guess most folks aren't up for it.
I also think that thinking through just what kind of alternative social system radicals who want to replace the present one should aim for and advocate is a crucially important matter, but not too many people have much of a taste for that kind of discussion, it seems.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax