is there an on-line discussion group that specializes in humor?
is it called borscht-belt-l?
------------------------
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Louis Proyect [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 12:03 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [PEN-L:30518] Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: american
> solipsism redu x
>
>
> James Devine:
> >do you organize rallies, deciding who to invite to speak?
>
> Why, yes I do. On Nov. 1st, there is a big rally in Central
> Park that I
> have put together. The keynote speaker is Hukalakka Meshabob,
> from the
> Bulgarian Party of Labor, the diehard Stalinist formation
> thirsting for
> revenge and power.
>
> >It seems to me that the effectiveness of a rally might actually be
> >_increased_ if there's a speaker who favored a previous imperialist
> >adventure but who now says that he's against the current
> adventure. More
> >concretely, that shows that even folks who agree with the
> vast majority of
> >U.S. citizens -- i.e., that the war against Afghanistan was
> a Good Thing
> >-- are opposed to the current war against Iraq.
>
> Why not make it a really Good Thing and invite Donald
> Rumsfeld, who favors
> war in both Afghanistan and Iraq, to speak. You could get
> Bono and Billy
> Joel to provide entertainment.
>
> >It depends on the kind of rally -- and the kind of movement
> -- we want. If
> >we want to have one that has a very clear and "correct"
> line, we should
> >exclude people who have sinned (politically) in the past. On
> the other
> >hand, if the idea is to have present a bunch of different
> people with
> >different viewpoints that are willing to unite against the
> war (including
> >Democrats, maybe some Republicans & libertarians, liberals, Catholic
> >priests, etc., etc.) in order to simply oppose the war, to
> save some Iraqi
> >and other lives, then the sinners might be welcome.
>
> I am dead-set opposed to sin. Under the socialism from above
> system that I
> have mapped out in copious detail using Fortran, all sinners
> will have
> their ears cut off.
>
> >The second kind of rally seems more likely to be successful,
> at least in
> >terms of size -- though we have to avoid the trap of
> limiting the nature
> >of the speakers allowed in order to please the Big Names who
> we invite.
> >Further, if we look at the most recent past, we can see that
> the movement
> >against capitalist globalization was pretty successful
> despite the fact
> >that they didn't exclude various groups and personalities from their
> >demonstrations, etc.
>
> Tut-tut, my lad. It was not inclusiveness that guaranteed the
> success of
> Seattle et al. It was the trashing of Starbucks. Just ask
> Chuck "Zero", the
> expert on all such matters who is a regular participant on
> various email
> lists, but not Marxmail.
>
> >Of course, this is a big debate. Back during the US war
> against Vietnam,
> >there were some who argued strenuously for the second
> (broader) type of
> >rally, saying that "Out Now" was a sufficient slogan. But
> there were some
> >reasonable arguments against them. I can't settle this
> question here or now.
>
> You must be referring to the big arguments that went on in
> the Mobe about
> whether or not to invite Richard Nixon to speak. I remember once when
> things really got so hot that Norma Becker kicked Fred
> Halstead in the
> groin. He had to wear a hernia belt for a month.
>
> >I definitely think it's good to counter slanders.
>
> And don't forget to honor thy mother and father.
>
>
>
>
> Louis Proyect
> www.marxmail.org
>
>
