[lbo-talk] Kos on Marches

John Lacny jlacny at earthlink.net
Thu Sep 29 19:34:40 PDT 2005


Michael Pugliese:


> The "entire" anti-war movement or damn near the entirety
> of it isn't represented by these freaks.

To delicately paraphrase Doug, can you read? I have said precisely this. It's one thing to have specific political criticisms of an organization; it is another to smear an entire movement because some people in it have wacky politics -- or good politics, for that matter, that are "out of the mainstream."

Compare:

Statement 1: "The Communist Party, USA, is against the privatization of Social Security, which is why they showed up at the rally to stop the privatization of Social Security yesterday. I happen not to share their views on North Korea, but that really had nothing to do with the Social Security rally yesterday. And no, Mr. Pugliese, I do not understand the purpose of your latest Google search on Alexander Trachtenberg's statements about the 1937 Purge Trials, nor do I much care."

Statement 2: "The Communist Party, USA, is against the privatization of Social Security. Therefore, I'm going to go on Bill O'Reilly and talk about how we have to stop nonagenarian veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade from attending Social Security rallies with signs that say 'People Before Profits.' According to a Google search by Michael Pugliese, some of them might have once read Theodore Dreiser articles in the New Masses. For shame!"

One is red-baiting, the other is not.

- - - - - - - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com

Tell no lies, claim no easy victories



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