At 13/11/02 20:47 -0500, you wrote:
Because sectarian traditions of marxism cannot engage with the real world, and perhaps prefer not to.Then I am opposed to engaging with the real world, if this means taking the side of NATO against Yugoslavia.
Chris Burford
Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
21 minutes later Louis Proyect returns with this retort which is, as so often, a barb, and a distorting barb, which diverts at a tangent from the main point.
Yes it is strange that with the contradictions sharpening in the real world to such a dangerous degree we are asked to focus on judging which people are more revolutionary than whom, and we are invited to consider taking personal sides between two New Yorkers both with their own e-mail lists, who are both more than capable of rendering accounts to one another in private.
Had Louis Proyect wished to demonstrate that his brand of marxism is not in fact subjective idealism and sectarianism (despite his bland description of his own list which he promotes with every email on this one) there are any number of aspects of current urgent questions of political economy he could contribute on.
Of course his inability to do so does not hang or fall on what basis he disagreed with me about the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia and the damage they did to the unity of working people, including between peopel of muslim and christian cultural background.
To divert to the tangent before returning to the main question:-
If Louis Proyect would like to withdraw his expulsion of me from his own list, for falsely accusing me of supporting NATO (and ensure that my contributions will not be censored, and that he will not edit them out of the summaries of his list, and that I will not be thrown off again, then I will consider debating with him there and explaining yet again that the critical viewpoint I held, along with the UK Guardian and Ken Livingstone was different to his caricature.)
Louis Proyect can demonstrate that his apparent brutal joke in his post of Sun, 10 Nov 2002 20:30:47 -0500 does not have a germ of truth in it. Many a true word spoken in jest.
Not only am I evasive, I am downright deceitful. ....I always have Joe in the back of my mind when moderating Marxmail.
Why should the host of an email list about marxism with several hundred members, want to joke on another list about being evasive and deceitful? Why would he not wish to demonstrate in a principled way that he can address major current issues of political economy rigorously and not distort them and mock those with whom he has a major disagreement?
If Michael wants to encourage a reopening of Yugoslavia in the context of how leftists take up an effective stance in the current phase of the development of global government, perhaps he will indicate his welcome for such a thread. Louis Proyect could start with my full final post to his own list, and explain why he not only disagreed with it but he was unable not to tolerate the erroneous opinion and demonstrate its falsity over time on the sort of broad and non-sectarian list he claims on his web-page, incorrectly, to be running.
Having commented on Louis Proyect's typical confusing tangential barb, which always takes ten times longer to explain than to fire, I will return to the thrust of Doug's question which I read to be
why focus on contemptuous remarks about people not on the list (as well as personalised barbs towards people on the list) when we are all free to demonstrate our willingness to address and debate collectively the major serious developments in global political economy going on in front of our eyes.
It is up to Louis Proyect to consider what perception he wishes to create for himself on this list, or whether it is sufficient to ask us to laugh with him (or at him?) over his joke that he is devious and evasive.
Chris Burford
