Louis:
>Jonathan Swift: "That was excellently observed," say I when I read a
>passage in another where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, then
>I pronounce him to be mistaken.
Is this some sort of best quote festival?
>Was I preaching? I'm sorry if I came across that way. But I am afraid that
>you are putting impossible obstacles before us when you say that
>second-hand sources are ruled out as a basis for making political
>judgements.
And Karl May ( not Marx!) wrote his best books while he was in prison in
Germany while never visited US, but we dont take his books as a historical
sources, do we?
I dont see where this talk is getting us, exactly.
>Unless you have grown up in Argentina, how else would you have
>"knowledge of history and political culture"?
I have problems, very ilustrative problems, debating with you guys....
There seems to be some sort of twisted competition in the air, here. Who is
the loudest ! He takes it all!
I doubt that your intelligence is preventing you from understanding what I
wanted to say, but if repeating is the way of talking, in your concept of
dialogue, Ok.
Of course that you can have a knowledge about political culture, and
history, even if you are not a native speaker. My example: I am a specialist
in the field of German history. I dont see what is preventing me to
understand German reality. As a ( bad, probably) english speaker, I am
following debates about many things of interest in English. As I have
knowledge of French and Rusian, I am in rather good relationship with this
production too. I am learning spanish 'cause my wife is Peruvian and I am
trying to understand her culture- by listening to her, her experience, by
visiting Peru, etc.
So, if you want to be serious about the Balkans, go to London Library and
start reading. Visit the Institute for Foreign Lenguages- and start learning
the lenguage.Fantastic experience! Very exciting! Go to Yugoslavia, live
there for a while. Find some friends who are living there. Talk with them.
Read the local papers, visit local libraries. And than come to talk with me
about the Balkans. I am afraid that Trotsky's books are not the best guide
trough this particular area. Read a bit more! Expand your horizons!
>Karl Marx never visited
>Russia or the USA, but he wrote some extraordinarily intelligent things
>based on investigations done at the London Library. Hurrah for books!!!
Hurrah for Karl Marx! I am glad that you have a healthy pretension to
compare yourself with one of the most ingenious man of our time / modesty is
a virtue of fools, Goethe( German writer) wrote / but Marx spoke english? Or
he read those books in German? As far as I know he didnt spoke Russian. And,
unfortunately, he wrote some very inaccurate things about Russia. But I
suspect that saying this is a sacrilige. Nevertheless, let's be adventorous!
As far as I can remember, he wrote that Bakunin and Herzen were wrong and
that revolution will not going to happen in Russia but in more industrilized
countries? This is the problem with "scientific theories".....Being applied
on subjects which you are not well acquainted with......But, let's stop with
this blasphemy and return to your comments. You didnt reply to my suggestion
that you have to look up to LCR? Perhaps you overlooked it?
The thing that matters, however, is that people from LCR, trotskysts,
are having very similar approach to Yugoslavia as I have. And people who I
am lucky to know from this group are very patient students of Yugoslav
history and-languages. They are speaking fluently Russian language, and they
study hard Serbo-Croat; they come here , to Yugoslavia, very often. And
this is why I respect their arguments even if they are in disagreement with
my own.
I am here , on this list, although I am a libertarian socialists. Why?
Because I think that marxist have much to offer to all people interested in
social change. Why again? because I want to learn.
I agree with Marx that you can learn something from everybody. I think that
he would be very disappointed to see that some of his disciples are trying
to teach everyone without efforts to learn something themselves.
@.
_______________________________________________
CrashList website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
