[lbo-talk] Waterboarding etc.

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri Jan 23 13:31:33 PST 2009


On Jan 23, 2009, at 4:22 PM, John Gulick wrote:


> CD sez:
>
> "Not to mention detached from reality."
>
> JG replies:
>
> C'mon, Chris, don't be so willfully thick. One harshly criticizes
> Obama from the
> left not because one actually believes that radical changes are
> possible, but as part
> of a general strategy to increase the chances that mild reforms get
> adopted. Hell,
> I don't know why I've gotten drawn into this discussion, because
> it's not like I'm an
> activist zealot... or even much of a mail-list junkie lately. It
> just seems like an old
> chestnut from Organizing 101 to me

I think it was Horkheimer who complained about how "be reasonable" came to mean "conform to the status quo," where reason was once (or should have been) a critical function. "Reality" serves a similar purpose.

Doug



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