me:
What is this "rational politics"? who believes in it and what are its tenets?
Leigh:
My employer describes part of 'rational politick' well when I discuss world affairs with him. Essentially, there's nothing he can do about 3/4 million dead Iraqis, so just go on with 'business (and social mores) as usual, and he LIKES IT like that.
why is this creep relevant to pen-l discussions? is there anyone on this list who is like this? (David S is a conservative, but I don't think he fits this category.) If there's no-one on the list who's like this, preaching against their perspectives here seems like spitting into the wind. me:
> ... Be SPECIFIC rather than dishing out more vague generalizations.
Leigh:
In Hannah Arendts' AND Ward Churchill's terms "...mass murderers out of a society's individuals" are the Eichmanns of which they spoke philosophically or directly. ... ...as currently practiced, their 'union' is part of the 'mass murderous' problem, and has no solutions for American society... just 'bennies' for a microscopic number of it's population IF they don't care about their work's impact on the rest of the world.
is there anyone on this list who is like this? why argue against the (so-called) "little Eichmann's" point of view if it's not represented here. Nobody on pen-l likes that point of view, as far as I know. To rail against it is simple self-indulgent preaching to the choir. (BTW, I hope that you don't think that the "little Eichmanns" in the Twin Towers deserved to die. Didn't Churchill repudiate that term?) Me:
Or is this simply an argument that "since everyone else is fucktup,
it's okay for 'angry anarchists' to be that way"? Leigh:
OK.
Me:
what crap!
Leigh:
You say... I consider theoretical marxism to be intellectual diarrhea, or constipation. So?
So? I was simply repeating myself. the "everyone else is fuktup" argument is nothing but the bogus "two wrongs make a right" view that burning a bank down somehow solves the problem that banks create for the world. I'd like to see _why_ you think theoretical Marxism to be intellectual diarrhea or (contradictorily) constipation. Are you saying that no theory is necessary, that you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing, that thinking with one's blood is enough? Or do you have a better theory? Me:
> BTW, the "angry anarchist" is not the opposite of the authoritarian despot. They share a tremendous amount.
Leigh:
Yup! ...and it's up to others who believe the world can be a better more humane place to point that out to them... not dun them or vilify. That's why I was never in a 'vanguard' (sneer).
so you don't run around burning ATM machines, like those anarcho-vanguardists in Greece? Leigh: >>>There's ALWAYS some way to blow things up. Me:
will there ALWAYS be idiots who believe that blowing things up is a
way to solve problems? Leigh:
Yes... But I'm not one of them. Blowing things up is just one tactic of many at appropriate times and places to solve some SPECIFIC problem.
then why do you glorify those idiots in Greece? -- Jim Devine / "if there's an original thought out there, I could use it right now." -- Bob Dylan & Sam Shepherd.
