My absolute last word on the subject: (a) This sounds like the kind of reasoning that people used to justify defense of the Stalinist purge trials, "don't rush to judgment," "could diminish the credibility of the revolution," blah blah; (b) If you actually read what I said, I can't see how you could object to a call for all socialists to defend GLBT liberation, (c) your explanation of the supposed analogy of the Duke rape trial is still defective. There's no official policy at Duke or in the South that encourages or condones white athletes to rape black women (there was unofficially a generation or two ago, but times have changed), but there has been a longstanding official Maoist/Stalinist tradition of homophobia, (d) in terms false impressions the fact that the Nepalese rebels are Maoist is enough to condemn them in the eyes of most of the world (and I'm pretty suspicious myself); lost of there enemies might think that homophobia (if real) is one of their few virtues, and very few (not Brian, I bet) would think that homophobia, even if true, would be a sufficient reason to damn them utterly, as opposed to criticizing their bigotry on this point, if they were otherwise as good, say, as the Cubans. You can have the last word, as it's obvious that I am starting to repeat myself.
--- Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/7/07, andie nachgeborenen
> <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I'm not sure I follow your analogy to the Duke
> rape
> > story.
>
> The tradition of privileged male athletes, and the
> tradition of white
> men vis-a-vis Black women, etc. certainly colored
> people's -- as well
> as the prosecutor's -- reaction. That's the
> similarity. The
> difference is that, given their privileged position,
> they have gotten
> good lawyers, a fair trial, and decent media
> coverage after the
> initial blind rush to judgment among liberals. The
> point is that we
> had better keep our minds open, regardless of the
> accused' membership
> in this or that tradition, our prejudice for or
> against them, etc.
>
> > Nothing is lost by saying that at least some
> members
> > of the world left are disturbed are concerned by
> > credible reports that this policy is being
> perpetuated
> > in Nepal, and that we condemn homophobia, regard
> it as
> > opposed to the goals of socialism and human
> > liberation, and urge the Nepalese revolutionaries
> to
> > support GLBT as well as other kinds of sexual
> > liberation.
>
> Things that can get lost are trust, credibility,
> reputation, and other
> usual things that can get lost when we make up our
> minds before we
> collect all relevant facts.
>
> Quite often, the media that report accusations do
> not report
> retractions of them or do so much less prominently
> if the accusations
> turn out to be untrue, especially when the accused,
> like Maoists, are
> categorically disfavored by the corporate media.
> Now, that's expected
> of the corporate media. But of leftists?
>
> Why not condemn the CPN(M) if the accusation in
> question against the
> party is proven true? Rushing to judgment now does
> not advance sexual
> liberation in Nepal or anywhere else for that
> matter, even if the
> judgment turns out to be correct. And if the hasty
> judgment turns out
> to be wrong, it will have done injustice to the
> CPN(M) and the GLBT
> Nepalese, by helping give a false impression about
> the relation
> between them.
> --
> Yoshie
> <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
> <http://mrzine.org>
> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
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>
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