>>> Brad De Long <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 06/29/99 02:22PM >>> >Brad De Long wrote: > To take a document and replace all appearances of the string "Mao Zedong" by the string "Max Sawicky" is hardly a lampoon--callous or otherwise. You see, the thing about such "totalitarian" language is it makes fun of itself: it does not need lampooning by others. ((((((((((((((((( Charles: However, when one reads the other passages written by Lin Biao in the very same text, which Henry sent to the list, the passages you sent don't sound totalitarian. They sound comparable to enthusiastic praise that we hear all of the time in U.S. political speeches promoting a candidate. Sticking to the non-racism issues, your post amounts to prevarication in the service of anti-communism. (((((((((((((((( Brad D: I could say that there is nothing Chinese about Lin Biao's language: the pattern for this form of Communist rhetoric was set by Stalin, and Lin Biao is simply following in the tradition of Molotov and company. Hence accusations of racism are absurd. (((((((((( Charles: Right on point are the accusations that you are misrepresenting the intellectual content of the writings of communist leaders and communists intellectuals in general in comparison with the writings of bourgeois leaders and bourgeois intellectuals. The pattern of bourgeois rhetoric is not indicative that bourgeois intellectuals such as yourself are more critical or mindful in your thinking than communist intellectuals. What you do not respond to is my assertion that implied in your mocking of the half-quoting of Lin Biao was the stereotypcial western and liberal claim that western liberal thought is more critical and mindlful than eastern and communist thought; and that this is a false claim on your part. Lets start comparing some typical mindless, uncritical western liberal rhetoric with fuller passages from Lin Biao and Mao Zedong, as Henry has started to do. Then western liberal rhetoric will be seen to be as dogmatic and uncritical as any you can find. By the way, you say Lin Biao was assassinated. So was Kennedy ( both of them). Charles Brown
