Date: Sat, 04 Jan 1997 18:33:11 -0500
Subject: Re: M-G: Rolf lets slip both a foolish AND ill-advised remark


Doug Henwood wrote:
> 
> At 12:25 PM 1/4/97, Louis R Godena wrote:
> 
> >Rolf replies to Zeynep:
> >
> >>...So I can understand that you didn't like too much some things
> >>I wrote about the list.    Anyway they weren't all directed in the main
> >>at you,  although it is a fact that an excessive naivete' and/or lack of
> >>experience of anti-imperialist struggles, which it seems to me are qualities
> >>that you have,  may be of some use to cops.
> >
> >I don't like your answer,  Rolf.
> >
> >But I'm going to give you an opportunity to revise it.
> 
> I didn't read Martens' original post, because I delete most of his toxic
> effluvia unread. But this is vile, even by his recent high standards.
> 
> This place is an unmoderated playpen, right? So there's nothing we can do
> about misbehavior by this hateful ignoramus, right? Except to shun him.


Why ? Can't you go back to M-I and leave us wallow in our filth? Rolf could
be a crank, indeed. But he is *not* a "hateful" crank. His attacks are *never*
personal but political.  And while I find his views and his marxism *strange* 
I think of Rolf as one of the most dedicated to the cause communists I have 
ever met on the Net.  If Doug does not appreciate Rolf's views in this list,
he can ignore them and express his own instead. Yet to my knowledge, he has never
made a single substantive political contribution to M-G.

As to the real examples of "hateful" speech, those members who are relatively new
to the marxist discussion in Jefferson village can find them in the archives
of M1: in the MIM episode in September of '95, in the slanderous attacks against
some Peruvian revolutionaries in the spring of '96, in the dirty provocation
against Robert Maleki last September. They will not fail to notice that, 
without exception, these hateful personal attacks were led by precisely those
gentlemanly white middle-class intellectuals who continue to pose as
self-appointed arbiters of good taste and manners.

Vladimir Bilenkin


     --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---