[lbo-talk] Terrain of Struggle was O'Reilly vs Churchill

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>>Miles Jackson :
>>Call me a well indoctrinated child of the Enlightenment, but the 
>>motives of someone who is providing information or a specific 
>>argument are completely irrelevant to a critical and rational 
>>assessment of the person's assertions.
>
>Who was arguing that motives trump all data? No one here that I 
>read. One could just as easily say to the reject any mention of 
>conflict of interest and only to disclose the raw data used is 
>actually counterproductive and irrational too but no one is arguing 
>that position either. Motives matter. Sometimes very little and 
>sometimes a great deal. It is situational.
>
>John Thornton

The situation in question is discussion among self-identified 
leftists here and elsewhere.  The question is whether one has 
material evidence to clarify a person's motives.  To take one 
example, it is wise to refrain from calling a person an "informer," 
an "agent provocateur," etc., however much the person's conduct 
resembles that of an agent in the pay of the government, unless there 
is material evidence to show that he is one, as in the Peace Fresno 
case: "Peace Fresno members discovered one of its members was 
actually a government agent when the Fresno Bee published an obituary 
on September 1, 2003, about Aaron Kilner's death in a motorcycle 
accident. In his obituary, Kilner -- known to Peace Fresno as Aaron 
Stokes -- was identified as a member of the Fresno County Sheriff's 
Department's 'anti-terrorist team.'  When members of Peace Fresno saw 
the picture and read the obituary they began piecing the story 
together" ("ACLU and Peace Fresno Call on California Officials and 
Lawmakers to Investigate Surveillance of Anti-War Group," 
<http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=15524&c=206>, 
April 21, 2004).

Also, some people here and elsewhere sometimes insist on doing 
nothing but ascribing motives to others and discussing the ascribed 
motives, to the exclusion of contents of messages.  An example of 
such a case on LBO-talk is Michael Dawson's and Doug Henwood's 
replies to my posting of an article entitled "Lesbo Goes to Muslim 
Bridal Shower" at 
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2004/2004-October/subject.html>.
-- 
Yoshie

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