>On Behalf Of Doug Henwood
>
> By the way, this outcome undermines the argument that LM is some
> sinister tool of British capital, doesn't it?
Only if you subscribe to a conspiracy-totalitarian version where British
capital controls every institution, including the left-leaning reporters who
brought the lawsuit, along with the minds of the jury who convicted LM.
I'd never paid much attention to LM before this whole libel suit fight, but
reading all the articles by them and about them, from their denial of
genocide in Rwanda to the long strange history of their precursor
Revolutionary Communist Party to their new enthusiasm for free market "human
potential", they seem like a pernicious opportunistic organization more
interested in publicity than social change of any progressive variety. In
their whole bizarre mixture of "anti-establishment" politics combined with
antifeminism and pro-capitalist enthusiasm along with odd connections to
power, they remind me of a weird mix between Lyndon LaRouche, Camille Paglia
and Tina Brown.
That folks like Yoshie declare them anti-imperialists when they publicize so
many reactionary political positions amazes me. Some samples:
On Asian Financial Crisis: "Certainly, life will be tough for many East
Asian people, financial institutions and companies for a year or so. There
will be a boom in bankruptcies. But these economies will likely come through
a period of shakeout and forced restructuring with an even stronger
productive base. No pain, no gain has always been the way in the market
economy."(March 1988)
Attacking Expanded College Access and Advocating Higher Fees: "There can be
no 'right' to education in universities, because you cannot exercise this
supposed right without having certain capacities - an interest in truth,
curiosity, a certain sense of wonder, an ability to follow abstract
argument, and so on. It happens that these capacities are pretty rare."
(Oct. 1999)
On Domestic Violence: "The problem here is not a 'gender bias' so much as a
grossly inflated representation of the extent of domestic violence. ...In
the drive to show that the other sex is as capable of degraded behaviour,
the important point about the rarity of domestic violence is lost."(Feb.
2000)
Pollution: "Yet recent evidence casts serious doubt on the assumed link
between air pollution, ill health and cars...if you are a healthy person you
have little to fear from air pollution."(April 1999)
On Microsoft & Internet: "Might it not in fact be a great thing if
Microsoft, or somebody else, went even further and really did come to
dominate the market?...The US government's attack on Microsoft's monopoly
position does not make sense. It was not Gates who determined that there
would be a monopoly; it was the market, in the shape of software developers
and consumers."
Global Warming: "Change is the norm, and nature has no preferred state - but
should we, from a human-centred perspective, have an ideal climate in
mind?...So why should we have anything to fear from global warming? Some
areas of productive farmland would be lost, but they would be more than
replaced by new areas for agriculture."(January 1988)
British libel laws stink on pinciple, but the world loses very little
politically from the demise of this kind of crap that defends every
environmental and financial excess by capitalism as an attempt to expand
human freedom and "progress."
-- Nathan Newman
