>Breathtaking. > >Doug More apolitical sniping from Doug. It would probably be asking too much for him to investigate for himself who is closer to the truth on Mayan agriculture, Hughes--who I discovered is a regular CNS columnist, a scary thought--or Sharer. It is much easier to debase the conversation by provoking flame-wars with charges of "embarrassing" or "breathtaking". Once again I must remind Doug that I have no particular axe to grind with him. I appreciate his excellent efforts through LBO at pressuring the US government and business interests into fair play. He is in a long, august tradition of radical reformers going back to Henry George and Robert LaFollette. Why he is so interested in getting into a flame war with me about indigenous peoples and ecology--a subject that I have poured considerable energy and time into--is anybody's guess. I harbor no ill will toward him and would have happily ignored him until he decided to defend O'Connor's honor. Most people on PEN-L recognized what my letter was about. It was a cry of pain after receiving a humiliating rejection letter from an editor, who had invited me to expand on a post that I had made originally on Doug's mailing list to submit to his journal. I never submit to journals unless I am asked. I spent over sixty hours on the article, including at least 4 days off from work. The rejection letter contained sidebar musings on the working-class which I considered a real insult, given the class differences between O'Connor and myself. Not only have I been a worker my entire life, my political activity has been about "enabling" workers as his jargon put it. I organized the Skilled Trades Task Force of Tecnica, which sent welders, machinists and printers to work with Nicaraguan trade unionists during a time of economic blockade and warfare. These workers helped to keep the infrastructure of Nicaragua going under tremendous duress. I also worked with the people who completed Ben Linder's hydroelectric dam project in northern Nicaragua. And organized people to automate the offices of COSATU, the South African trade union movement. And organized the people who trained SWAPO in desktop publishing, so they could put together election campaign material. It is a real slap in the face for me to get a lecture on the working class from somebody whose only contact with workers is probably the maintenance crew that cleans the toilet in his office bathroom at the University. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
