On 10/25/06, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>What is odd, American leftists bring this absurd perfectionism to
>their understanding of *other* countries! And act as if they could
>and should expect Iranians, Brazilians, Venezuelans, etc. and their
>political leaders to agree with them 100%! But, no, Iranians,
>Brazilians, Venezuelans, etc. do NOT think like them, and if they did,
>they would NOT amount to anything.
>
>What American leftists need is focus on a few major issues -- one or
>two, ten at most -- and see how many can work together based on the
>points of agreement.
>--
>Yoshie
Yoshie is somewhat confused, I believe. There is very little interest on a
day to day basis about the internal politics of Iran, Brazil, etc. It is
only when people set themselves up as cyber-emissaries and give us glowing,
cherry-picking reports on such countries on a 24-7 basis that finally some
of us wake up from a deep slumber and begin to present an alternative
opinion. I never posted once about Iran in about a 2 year period on
Marxmail except to denounce the stupid petition that Joanne Landy had
circulated. But after being subjected to Yoshie's version of Radio Tehran,
I began to feel an irresistible urge to go out and draw caricatures of
Mohammad on the subway station wall.
Suppose you don't like my opinion about Iran. So what? Even on Iran,
I'd think that points of agreement between us -- e.g., no war or
sanctions on Iran -- are more important than points of disagreement --
e.g., relative merits and demerits of populist and reformist factions
in Iran. If you find my opinion beyond the pale, so would be most
Americans'.
Besides, the application of perfectionism is universal, from domestic
to foreign policy, across the political spectrum. American leftists
can't live with what's imperfect but is still worth supporting. All
that's left is criticize what other people are doing, whatever it is.
It's impossible to build any Left if all of us have to agree with one
another 100%, from major to minor issues.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
