[lbo-talk] Relevant Recent LBO Poisoning of Discourse [Fwd: Re: Jonathan Nitzan on Against the Grain]

[Carrol Cox]

I post this because Tom very neatly disposes of the sort of chicken-shit
cowardly rhetoric recently displayed on this list. Many very honorable
leftists argued powerfully last year for the ABB position -- one, at
least, on this list. So it is sad that those still chewing that cud
can't give an argument instead of an attempt to muddy the waters with
stupid yacking about purism, etc. Their case isn't that weak. Why don't
they argue it instead of making fools of themselves with gradeschool
sneers.

Carrol

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Jonathan Nitzan on Against the Grain
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 23:02:00 -0500
From: tom walker <lumpoflabour at YAHOO.CA>
Reply-To: PEN-L list <PEN-L at SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU>
To: PEN-L at SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU

Jonathan Nitzan wrote:

Addressing me at first, presumably,


> Postone, Virno -- and presumably also Hardt and
> Negri Inc. -- “have
> said it all along”.

No, I didn't also mention Hardt and Negri because I
was specifically excluding them from the question. And
what's the purpose of the quotation marks around "have
said it all along"? What I said is that you are not
alone, which ain't even close. But then I suppose you
"vant to be alone." Suits me.


> I suppose the difference boils down to this: They
> are post-Marxist. They
> already know everything...

Perhaps Hardt and Negri are the ones who know
everything. Perhaps that's why I didn't include them
in my question. But I referred to two texts, by
Postone and Virno, respectively not to some vast,
vague, ephemeral abstraction called "post-Marxism."
There's no shame in not having read those texts, if
that's the reason you couldn't answer my question. But
to imply with a sweeping dismissive that my question
was not legitimate because it came from some,
presumably, presumptuous territory of the know-it-alls
is, well, boorish.


> We, on the other hand, still feel a little insecure.

That is all too evident from the tone of your reply.


> You may feel that the fact that capitalists control
> social reproduction...


>From this point on, presumably, the rest of the
message addresses Charles Brown's point without making
any distinction between the two of us, as if Charles'
message and my own had anything in common other than
their subject lines.


> So no harm intended, but I think the gap between us
> is just too wide for
> this sort of debate.

No harm done. _You_ were debating with a supercilious
abstraction: "post-Marxism." _I_ was responding to a
text you had written -- a text, by the way, that
contained far too many scare quotes to be read by
anyone who wished to retain some semblance of
proximity between his "eyebrows" and his "eyes."

The Sandwichman

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