>SA wrote:
> >
> > Doug Henwood wrote:
> >
> > > few will admit to the kind of population shrinkage that would be
> > > necessary to realize their vision.
> >
> > "Will somebody please think of the children?"
>
>I'm obtuse on this. I didn't catch the point the first time someone used
>this, so I don't catch the point in what I assume is SA's sarcastic
>quoting of it. Could someone explain.
>
>Carrol
I can't help you understand it because, like Doug, it made no sense to me in its original context. When I've seen it used elsewhere, "think of the children" is used by conservative and libertarian critics of the "nanny state". It's often used to mock people who want to enact legislation that protects some class of people from themselves and/or the evils of society. It's generally used to mock someone for using moralizing claims about some social evil to call upon the state to *do something*.
I think Eric means something similar where the concern about the mass chaos that might ensue -- with no entities running things or managing mass-production so that we have no electricity or running water -- can be used as a kind of fear-mongering to legitimize currently-existing ways of doing things.
I'm not sure if that is what Eric's saying so forgive if I've got it wrong. And to be clear: I don't think Doug was fear mongering. He seems to have legitimate questions and is interested in answers. Which, I should say, is also my stake in this: I would be interested in how Eric thinks through these questions -- even if it's just pointers to good links on the topic.
At the time, I didn't get what it has to do with that particular twist in the thread with the Subject Line: Fear of nationalization sets in. I just shrugged it off at the time, but reproduced the exchange below:
On Feb 21, 2009, at 11:28 AM, Eric Beck wrote:
>>>I took Eubulides to be ironic, but given that the whole point of this
>>>list over the last few weeks and months has been to give advice to
>>>capital and to pray for it to reconstitute itself on some more humane,
>>>socialistic level, I don't know what to think anymore. People on
>>>lbo-talk may scoff at the conservative idea that nationalization
>>>= socialism, but as far as I can tell that's exactly the politics that
>>>dominate here.
Doug replied:
>>I really don't know what you're talking about here, but I do wonder what
>>your position is. How do we get from the society we have to the one you
>>want? Who will keep the electricity running? Will we have electricity? Do
>>centralized generating plants just embody the crap hierarchies of
>>capitalist society, so we should just replace them with rooftop solar
>>panels made by small cooperative enterprises?
>>We are in the middle of an economic and financial crisis that gives us
>>some opportunity. Tell those of us with blinkered imaginations how we
>>could do it better.
>>Doug
Eric replied:
>Won't somebody please think of the children?
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20090216/002679.html
and
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20090216/002707.html