andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> [clip] Let me
> tell you this is not the profile that you find on the
> Mises or Hayek lists, much less lower-brow right wing
> lists.
Don't be so defensive about it. :-)
You do NOT usually attack the motives or leftists who disagree with you, you do NOT demand proper anti-stalinist credentials before admitting others to the ranks of the honest and true, and you DO exhibit a clear understanding of the grounding of electoral politics in popular struggle. That makes you a leftist, howver much I disagree with many of your positions. MOREOVER: you do NOT slimily and dishonestly attack others on this list under the cover of making vacuous statements about "some leftists" or "the left."
You are, however, far too generous to Nathan. The distinctive feature of his postings on this list is not his defense of the DP but his endless attacks on other leftists and his defamation of all efforts to build popular movements outside the reach of the DP. He simply doesn't know the meaning of an honest difference of opinion. His attacks on the National Lawyers Guild are utterly shameless. He is an enemy of the left, though I do not doubt his sincerity in calling himself a socialist, but it is an empty socialism, a socialism that has no grip on the world outside his own imagination.
And I believe that you arrive at your positive position through a really weird combination of extravagant pessimism and extravagant optimism. The reasons you give for the impossibility of revolution are even better reasons for seeing the impossibility of a peaceful route to socialism. Revolution may be impossible, but it is incredibly starry-eyed to think that the u.s. ruling class would ever allow itself to be voted out of power.
Carrol
P.S. ravi wrote:
>
> there is still
> some room for 'left' discussion, though ccox, when reached for comment,
> rejected as meaningless the idea that 'some room for X'. ;-)
You exhibit a PROPER use of "Some" propositions, and by contrast you demonstrate how slimy and/or vacuous are those some-statements which I have attacked in the past (and will continue to attack).
"This list has some room for left discussion." The statement refers to a domain which we all share in common. We know its application and can either attack or support it with reasons.
"Some leftists are X." The statement is utterly meaningless because it is impossible to identify (a) what kind of argument would either justify or refute it, (b) its relevance to any ongoing discussion, or (c) what is the legitimate purpose for making it in the context of lbo discussion. (There are no Sparticists on this list; hence a free-floating statement about "some" leftists that applies mostly to Sparticists is in actuality a cowardly attack on unnamed but implied lbo-posters.)