At 08:24 PM 2/24/01 -0800, you wrote:
>Can you all suspend paranoia, fear of redbaiting or Swiss-baiting (Julien)
>while I try to make some honest observations?
>
>You asked me for a proposal. Here is one-----> I suppose the easiest analogy
>is to say you MUST fight a two front war, Stan. You must attack what
>variously (and interchangably) is described as [Bourgeois
>Capitalism/Imperialism/Global Capitalism/Capitalism] WHILE you fight to
>defend the biosphere. Stan, you require we "win" some battle with "them"
>*before* you turn your attention to the apocalypse.
I have categorically NEVER stated this. My argument with Julien and others
has been that the solution can not be found in restructuring capitalism.
Not the same thing. I currently know and work with a fair number of
environmentalists of various stripes, and consider this part of the
base-building and alliance building that is necessary for efforts on "both
fronts."
There is no time, you
>only have the 25-30 years you allow yourself for inflicting damage upon
>"them" --- and that strategy is flawed in ways I wish to discuss "some
>other time", okay?
>
>Here's a reason, a reality that is too often avoided: We are "them". We are
>ALL (every one of us reading this) to some degree "capitalists." We are ALL
>part of the damned and evil system, and we're all bourgeois, and we are all
>contributing to the rape of the planet, when we don't have to. To the extent
>that we are part of that system, ... to at LEAST that extent ... must we
>immediately change our behavior. Not in some miraculous future when we
>"win". Plus, the effect of all of us changing our behavior within the
>capitalist system fights the war on two fronts.
Forgive me, but this is nonsense. This reminds me of the diversion of the
struggle for black liberation in my own country during the Cold War, when
racism was redefined as some kind of personal pathology, and the struggle
was de-linked from the anti-colonial struggle. Changing individual
behavior?
>
>(If you ask me how we change that behavior, I again say "attitude". If you
>ask me what have EYE done to advance the cause, I can assert that indeed I
>walk my talk on this issue, and also have reduced my footprint in the
>natural world as much as I can and still remain an activist. I don't always
>blow my own horn.)
>
>Tom
Okay, I recycle and I don't flush every time. I don't put pesticides on
the grass behind my house. The net effect in the face of the structural
problem?
>
>PS the rest is addenda, less important:
>
>First, I have re-thought something I recently posted to you, Stan. I now say
>that if all we do on Crashlist is educate some of "the left" (forgive me) to
>the environmental components of the apocalypse, we will have done much. You
>are correct to call for education.
>
>On personal "argument": Is it possible to believe that someone like Julien
>or me could be suggesting
>a change in your strategy and not be opposed to your efforts at the same
>time? Is there no place for genuine disagreement or critical discussion
>without "Automatically assuming that a critique is developed of a system
>forpropaganda purposes is quintessential caricature-constructed
>redbaiting."? -- If not, then you are requiring a priori total agreement or
>... nothing.
I have done no such thing. You have confused the intent of my statement,
and this comment was in response to what was clearly redbaiting. Defending
oneself from redbaiting is NOT requiring a priori anything. It's demanding
that one's arguments be confronted on their own merits, and not dismissed
as being motivated by a desire for sectarian propaganda.
No one is
>asking you to put aside your goals, Stan, just to work smarter. I indeed
>support your goals. Howabout a little support of OUR goals too? (Or mine,
>one is never sure of Julien's. <g>)
I'm amazed that someone still beleives I do not share the same goals. Have
I ever once stated that I did not beleive there is a tremendous crisis and
that it necessitates a tremendous response as quickly as humanly possible?
We Reds do not get irritated with disagreements, contrary to popular
belief. What frustrates the hell out of us is being repeatedly
misrepresented.
Stan
"...all truly great scientific abstractions are both universal and simple.
They are simple not because they explain so little but because they explain
so much. Generality does not arise because an abstraction represents
everything that could possibly happen, but because it remains valid no
matter what happens."
Alan Freeman
_______________________________________________
CrashList website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
