[Marxism] [UCE] Moderator's note
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * This thread on whether or not to vote for Clinton has reached the saturation point. People, including me, are repeating themselves. We may come back to it at some point but I want to close the discussion on it for the time being. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The moderator's note
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * What the moderator has done by unsubbing Creegan for his posts is also to exclude the possibility of reading thoughtful responses such as that of Michael Karadjis. The effect is to turn the list into one of singing to the choirmaster. michael _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The moderator's note
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Don't unsub me, Louis. However, while I do understand the impulse to end the sectarianism of the revolutionary left--this list is one place where it exists--one has to ask whether continuing to allow or disallow pretend class analyses of people as interventions into a discussion where there are significant differences among serious people has a meaningful role. Frankly, I did not realize that Creegan had been undertaking this intervention for six months because one only has to read his, and others', posts once or twice to see whether there are serious and thoughtful posts being written. Michael K.'s reply to Creegan was indeed a thoughtful reply even as Creegan's post(s) can be seen as formulaic. I'm sorry for Michael to have spent so much energy just so Creegan could make himself appear serious by acknowledging Michael's thinking and then, yet again, descending into the same sectarian nonsense. Lost in all this handwringing about anti-democratic functioning by Louis for putting a stop to this descent into sectarianism (or, more aptly, deeper levels of it than we sometimes see) are the more serious issues how to characterize both the defeat of the Greek workers and oppressed and the leadership that was either forced or destined ( owing to non-proletarian thinking) to preside over this defeat. Everyone wants to engage in this character assassination or character defense because everyone here hasn't EVER had to grapple with what do next when you've been elected by the masses to end capitalist oppression. Tsipiras has, Varoufakis has, and, to some extent those in Antarsya and the other Greek groups have, too. The rest of us are simply talking. Opinionating. I wonder whether the descent into (more) sectarianism by the likes of Creegan or others is really all that useful? If it is, then perhaps Louis is wrong to end the discussion by exclusion. I suppose we'll find out so on regarding the wisdom of stopping sectarian intervention--as opposed to actual serious discussion--if there is a mass exodus by people on the list over democracy. What might happen to Louis and his approaches to leadership should he join a workers party or be part of a mass revolutionary movement will really be a function, like the rest of us, should such an event actually transpire and what we do then. Arguing such a point is more than meaningless and, to me, seems more designed to justify sectarian infighting more than serious discussion. Of more important concern to me is the fact, and the context behind, the beating and jailing of the FI comrades by Syriza Riot Police that Ioannis recently posted. I may have missed any posts related to that after his (or her?) report and petition, so, if someone can point me to that discussion, I'd appreciate it. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The moderator's note
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 7/18/15 4:53 PM, michael a. lebowitz via Marxism wrote: What the moderator has done by unsubbing Creegan for his posts is also to exclude the possibility of reading thoughtful responses such as that of Michael Karadjis. The effect is to turn the list into one of singing to the choirmaster. michael With all due respect, Michael. I belonged to a party for 11 years in which people were summoned to membership review committees to pin down when they would go into industry in order to save their petty-bourgeois souls. In the mailing list that preceded this one, a day did not go by when people were characterized in a class analysis that divided the list hopelessly into warring factions. This was the sick culture I was determined to prevent from taking hold here. All this talk about Yanis Varoufakis's bourgeois life-style has been bandied about on FB for months now. It is the same crap that you heard about the Green Revolution in Iran--the petty bourgeoisie wanted to be able to drink white wine in public so they went to the CIA for help. This is not Marxism. It is pop sociology and idiotic. Furthermore, Creegan had been pushing this for six months now. What you think of Tsipras becomes a litmus test. If you think he did not have a choice, you are giving aid and comfort to a traitor. All you need to do is connect the dotted lines. Stating that a Grexit might lead to a disaster worse than staying in the eurozone might mean that you class loyalties are suspect. I put a lot of work in to making this mailing list useful, spending a couple of hours each day going through scholarly and popular material that would be of interest to Marxists. I don't ask for money because I don't really need it. But if there's one thing that I demand, it is not to have to put up with people who think that they are Lenin fighting against revisionists and traitors. The entire 20th century has been marked by left groups splitting apart by this logic. The young Argentinian who posts here was too young to know anything about Nahuel Moreno but the fact is that his movement split into 20 different groups over this kind of class analysis that divided the left into the pure and the impure. I'd rather terminate Marxmail than to have to put up with that kind of baloney. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The moderator's note
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Louis, I completely understand your frustration but second Michael's appeal for another chance. The list simply is better with as many differing views as possible. Some of these views are wildly contrary to my own but I find their airing to be instructive and actually help in forming a stronger set of beliefs. But I'm not unsubbing. You are perfectly within your rights. In any event it was your essays that drew me here, not Jim Creegan's. But please reconsider. - Original Message - From: Michael Karadjis via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu To: Charles Faulkner lacena...@comcast.net Cc: James Creegan sectaria...@gmail.com Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2015 6:11:28 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] The moderator's note POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Louis, please let's start this over. I don't want someone to be kicked off due to him replying to a post of mine. Jim may have lashed out at other times (we all get hot under the collar, including you and I) but this reply of his was hardly a fire and brimstone sectarian rant. We need this discussion because no-one around here, except those living in Greece, really has any real idea of what the hell. We're all expressing our opinions and learning from each others' points. I'd probably be saying something different this week and something different last week. It is also a matter of interpretation how to interpret the marxmail guidelines you sent. Jim was doing what he thinks is class analysis. I profoundly disagree with his interpretation of class analysis. But having a form of analysis I disagree with doesn't prove he is playing at being Trotsky or being the best Bolshevik. And this list would lose hugely if it also meant people like Andrew Pollack and Marv Gandall were unsubbed as well. Let's start again and all agree to be respectful in this discussion. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/lacenaire%40comcast.net _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
