> Uh, that was a joke, unlike Jurriaan accusing me of "political > racism," or some such, which I just let pass.
Here in Europe, we distinguish between passing wind and a joke. The New Zealander Bill Rosenberg, a social democrat who sometimes has interesting things to say, has sometimes posted "sheepfarting stories" on PEN-L. I think the problem with your taken approach is that you end up trivialising serious questions, and thinking that trivial questions are serious, without thinking more profoundly about the total situation which make questions trivial or serious. There are cases of flatulence, including intellectual flatulence, which are regarded as humorous here, but that is only because people see the funny side of something, which they would normally regard as rude or unpleasant (e.g. do you fart in the bed ?). I think I have answered your question quite adequately - Nader personally achieved what American socialists just talked about, and you can learn from that. How did he do it ? To learn from Nader, you have to part company with effete, supercilious and smug impressionist trendies, and concentrate more on how Nader does what he does, and how he avoided the handicap of literal Marxisms. Jurriaan
