[lbo-talk] stupid and disgusting

[Carrol Cox]

On 8/4/2011 5:52 PM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
> I'm not really sure I understand what is at stake in this convo, but
> what I find a challenge to navigate is this: At work, someone will say,
> "This is just so stupid. They are acting like children. Grow up and get
> out of kindergarten. They're all freakin' five year olds."
>
This is no problem: it concerns general public response, not with a left 
analysis of the present conjunction. The response too, of course,m calls 
for analysis: I would say provisionally that it is not good from a left 
perspectrive: it is too apt to show general negativism towards _our_ 
kind of politics as well as with Congress & Obama. (The Watergate hurt 
left politics.) But "stupid" is (sic) a stupid response if you are 
trying to understand your enemy: in fact, as I said, it is a _fatal_ 
error. It shows an utter inability to look at the world from the enemy's 
perspective. They seem to have some fairly intractable problems. I for 
one do not claim to be able to read their minds to determine what their 
aims are: and the intelligence of their respnse can only be judged in 
terms of the purposes they posit. Too many leftists seem to assume they 
have the same goals we do!

Carrol