The first few exchanges were in fact quite pleasant, things took a turn for the worse when you wrote, with confidence - only later owning up to knowing little to nothing about the topic - the message that started: I do not want to split hair, but they did not stand a chance - cointelpro or not. No armed insurrection in the US stands a chance. Far better armed and organized efforts, such as 'coal wars' were defeated, mainly by private goons only with relatively small government help.
Then, and only then, did Carroll get short with you... and, in addition to that being his style, which you ought to be used and inured to by this point, a good portion of his irritation comes, surely, from the fact of his regular participation in exchanges about the Panthers and their history over - at least - the last two years, conversations which have provided a world of counterfactuals relative to the position you took in the above cited email as well as that presented on wikipedia.
And then, after rather polite corrections from Max, Chuck and Dennis you returned, two days later with this: I'd say macho and very American. Love of guns is American as flag and apple pie. They just followed the American tradition. which simply continued to inflame the issue. You see, you can't say that you're an innocent when - in the face of the arguments already politely presented by Max, Chuck and Dennis - you respond this way.
I was already irked at this point, but then you pulled out Marx... as if it was pertinent, or polite rather than vague at best and superior, certainly. At that point, Joanna pointed out what all the others had been saying, which was that you were just plain wrong in your understanding and historical parallels and only then do you try to excuse your mis-steps with: I'm sorry but I don't really know what I'm talking about, I just really hate guns...
That last bit only goes to show people participating in the thread that all of the historical context that had been provided you, all the complexity, situatedness, and legality of the decisions the Panthers made mattered not a whit to you because you don't like guns. I don't like guns either - witness an earlier exchange about a coyote-killing governor of Texas - but the last thing I'd do is make general and moralistic claims about people and movements clearly run by complex people in complex times unless I knew a good bit about them (which you should have, given - again - that these issues have been hashed out semi-regularly over the last two years.
Why do I care about this, I don't know, maybe (believe it or not) it's sociological solidarity.
On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 11:16 AM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Alan: "Nowhere. You're an informant now? I thought you were part of a
> group of
> more or less like minded folks engaged in collegial or comradish exchanges.
> I'm not studying you, I'm arguing against you. Jeez."
>
> [WS:] Wrong assumption. In case you did not follow this thread from
> the start, I responded to Dennis posting on the subject with a
> question about a detail that caught my attention. Some people
> replied with sanctimonious lecturing and personal invective - which
> btw is very typical of public discourse in this country, so it does
> not come as much of a surprise - others (Max, Joanna) replied that my
> information was inaccurate and explained why. To that, I replied that
> I take the point & explained why I initially thought what I did. Hence
> the informant part (i.e. information how people think and organize
> their perceptions which I thought might be of interest to some.) I
> never pretended it to be a discussion between peers because as I said
> time and again, I do not have direct knowledge of the subject, only
> secondary accounts.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 10:15 AM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Nowhere. You're an informant now? I thought you were part of a group of
> > more or less like minded folks engaged in collegial or comradish
> exchanges.
> > I'm not studying you, I'm arguing against you. Jeez.
> >
> > I thought you were someone who admitted to knowing very little about this
> > topic but who nevertheless wrote in very knowing ways. My suggestion was
> > that when you don't know what you're talking about and know that you've
> > avoided learning about the issues at hand because of certain
> predispositions
> > that you change the tone of how you write. You could say things like:
> "I've
> > always heard...", "Is it true that..." "Could anyone help me better
> > understand..." "This sounds to me, at least at first blush, to point...."
> "I
> > don't understand the context in which..." etc.
> >
> > I think another thing that's kinda got some some folks feeling like their
> > knickers are in a twist is that - just in the last two years - there have
> > been a number of discussions about the Panthers, Weather Underground, Red
> > Brigades, etc and these exchanges have clearly differentiated the groups,
> > their contexts, etc, as well as various affiliations and affections here
> on
> > the list... but not an iota of that work that, again, we assume you've
> read
> > given your participation rate here appears to have penetrated your
> aversion
> > or informed your recent posts.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Alan: "But you are NOT taking the point. You are letting your strong
> >> aversion
> >> utterly and completely blind you to historical and geographic context
> >> while,"
> >>
> >> [WS;} So where do they teach that criticizing the informant for not
> >> knowing what the researcher does is a valid method of
> >> sociological/ethnographic inquiry?
> >>
> >> Wojtek
> >>
> >>
> >>
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
-- ********************************************************* Alan P. Rudy Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work Central Michigan University 124 Anspach Hall Mt Pleasant, MI 48858 517-881-6319