~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Weekly focus # 22 -- / what's hot (or not) on the pof-200 list / ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Me talk laconic some day (reply to Lorraine) (2) anti-reformist web page work (reply to DJ) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
----------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Me talk laconic some day (reply to Lorraine) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Lorraine -- Nov 29: > Here is my one letter per week or month: > you are too verbose, True. My aspiration is to be more laconic. Some readers may be unfamiliar with the word "laconic". The best example of this is the reply that the commander of the 300 Spartan soldiers gave at Thermopoly when an army of 15,000 Persians asked them to hand over their weapons (ie: to surrender). The reply was: "Come and get them." > can't you say anything in a short concise format? Sometimes I can deal with one topic in a few words. But then I will use the rest of my post to deal with other topics. I have one shot each week at describing, for the most serious readers of this list, the topics that are most important. I would like my comments to be of interest to (and readable by) all subscribers. But my first priority -- now and always -- is the most serious section of my audience. This may require, for example, that I make an effort (as I did last week, complete with fancy latin names) to describe the forces that might tend to tear apart a revolutionary organization -- and the forces that might tend to bind it together. I want the serious readers to have these concepts in their minds at all times. How else could we possibly hope to create organization that is deserving of the respect of our class? In the last month the world has witnessed fighters in Fallujah (some quite young) standing up to a savage imperialist assault that made use of extremely powerful and sophisticated weapons. I found the resistance of these fighters to be very inspiring. These young men are fighting with great courage in very difficult circumstances. I wish that we could have as much courage. I wish that I could have as much courage. Our fight, here in the center of imperialism, is different in many ways than the fight of the young men who defend their nation against US imperialism. We are warm and dry and safe. We have a roof over our head and food in our stomachs. Our fight is legal (ie: protected, at least at this time, by bourgeois legality) and we do not need to be concerned about a bomb blowing up our apartments. But in others respects our fight is similar: it requires great patience and determination. > I don't have the time to read > your volumous email replies. I am sorry to hear that. I wish that I could press a button and transform this list into something full of short, powerful messages that were each capable of capturing your imagination. And maybe this list will be like that someday. But if it does happen -- it will be because a core of activists are devoted to the kind of list which hammers home -- again and again and again -- the principles that are most important: our goal is the overthrow of bourgeois rule, this goal requires a movement of millions and it requires revolutionary organization that is deserving of the respect of the working class. And the creation of such organization requires that we be highly conscious of the reasons that hundreds of attempts to create such organization have failed -- and be conscious of the immense potential of the emerging revolution in communications. I want to help create a community that is as serious and determined about these things -- as the young men in Fallujah who are fighting with Kalashnikov's against 2000 lb bombs. I guess that is it Lorraine. Maybe, if you want to help us make this list more interesting, you can tell us what you would like to see here. How did you learn about this list and what are your expectations for it? What is your political outlook and the road by which you came to it? ----------------------------------------------------------------- 2. anti-reformist web page work (reply to DJ) ----------------------------------------------------------------- I am very pleased to hear back from DJ: > I agree that it's important to develope ways > of working together despite our disagreements. > Creating a webpage that explores the issue of > reformism and how to fight it is a good way to > do that in my opinion. I'm not sure how I feel > about the specifics of the proposal as the > minimum time and word-change are not nothing > but as close to nothing as one can get. Yes, that is the idea: what is the minimum effort that would allow: (a) effort to be made on a weekly basis (b) practical progress to be made This is the spirit of humility (and also realism). 15 minutes a week will be practical. Anything more might get lost in a host of competing priorities. But 15 minutes can be done. And the idea is that this will keep the project in the part of our brain devoted to "live" projects -- and with luck will draw more than 15 minutes from us on some of those weeks. > But at the moment, I don't have a better proposal > and your proposal is at least a start and is > obviously just a guideline. Well, of course we can put in more than 15 minutes. But the idea is that we make a public commitment to ourselves, to one another and to our audience. This may help create a model that others can use for projects of their own. My experience is that projects which do not see action on a weekly basis -- tend to be dead projects -- or at least projects that are in deep hibernation. > I do fully agree with the two sections idea--though I'm > not sure how to do it. Unless you've already come up > with something, I'm going to create a "WorkInProgress" > (WIP) section that the front page'll link to. I already added a section on the page last week. Readers can see it when they scroll down. There is a brief intro sentence in a table with a gray background. I am fine with putting this on a separate page if you want -- but there may be advantages to having the two separate sections on a single page (at least until the page begins to get too long). Once I add the "blog" feature to the page -- it will be easier for readers to leave comments on both sections. However whatever you are comfortable with is fine with me. > However, December will be an extremely busy > month for me and I'm not sure I'll be able to do > anything at all for a couple of weeks. Well we could wait until January. I think it is important that we put in a minimum of 15 minutes a week for six weeks without interruption. Our thoughts tend to get stale if they are not refreshed at least weekly (at least mine do). > But at the same time, I have recently completed a > study on a specific example of reformism--Allende's > popular frontist regime in Chile. That seems like an excellent example to me. It can help show new activists what happens when you place your trust in reformist political trends -- the bourgeoisie will decide to play the fascist card as soon as you make real progress -- and you will find yourself caught helpless and defenseless. > It should be revised because it was written > for a very particular audience, It can be challenging to write for a general audience with little political experience -- but it is highly worthwhile. Having created a longer, more detailed article first is great preparation. The two priorities for effective writing are: (1) know your subject, and (2) know your audience. I would suggest that you post what you have created here on the pof-200 in the hopes that, if it draws any comments, the comments could help you create the more popular and shorter version. > but I'm going to go ahead and post it on the WIP section. > (And as for the proposal, we could either postpone the > start date till January, or go with the spirit of your proposal > and if I can't do it for a couple of weeks, let this paper's > contributions 'roll over' for 2 weeks.) Whatever happens > exactly, I won't be able to contribute much other than > this paper until January, but I do look forward to working > on this project with you Ben. Sound good. Let's wait until January then. I am opposed to the concept of "roll over". If you put in 15 hours of work in the first week -- this does not give you any extra credit on the second week: you still need to put in at least 15 minutes during week two. This way our thoughts remain active and we will have more opportunities to be inspired by one another's work. Sincerely and with revolutionary regards, Ben Seattle ----//-// December 5, 2004 http://struggle.net/Ben (my elists / theory / infrastructure) Want to keep updated about my work? Send email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] No Spam!--Just 2 emails a year to keep you updated ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $4.98 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Q7_YsB/neXJAA/yQLSAA/B140lB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> (This is not a discussion list--the discussion list is pof-200) THEORIST LIST -------------- To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theorist/messages Info: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theorist/ POF-200 ------- home page:��� http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pof-200/ to subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! 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