Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 06:47:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gerald Levy <glevy-AT-pratt.edu>
Subject: M-I: imperialist lies?


> From: Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan-AT-qut.edu.au>
> Subject: replying to Malecki was Re: M-I: Back to Ireland..
> Each morning I buy the local Murdoch Press 'The Brisbane Courier Mail'.  I
> simply have no choice.  I lecture on the media and must read it.  On
> Ireland the Courier Mail claims that the IRA is attacking Protestant areas
> and is making money out for running drugs.  I am full of a deep anger at
> these imperialistic lies.  But I expect nothing less from Murdoch and his
> toadies.
> I open up the Marxism list and there I read exactly the same filth.  I am
> told on this a marxism list that the IRA is running drugs.  I am told that
> they are attacking Protestant areas.

There is a very simple and effective way of dealing with this type of
issue: 

DEMAND PROOF.

By demanding proof, the person making such an accusation is forced to ante
up and place their proof on the table for examination or admit that he/she
does not have the proof to support the accusation made.

Certainly, that is a more effective way of dealing with the issue at hand
and toning-down the rhetoric than charges and counter-charges about who
is revolutionary and who is counter-revolutionary.

But ... to suggest as Gary does that because a charge is made in the
bourgeois press it must obviously be a counter-revolutionary
imperialist lie, opens the door for hiding one's head in the sand and
apologetics. 

> Also I protest about the silence from the moderators at the incessant
> personal abuse that Malecki specializes in.  In post after post he curses
> and swears at committed Marxists.  I also protest at their silence while
> Malecki attempts to cobble together a cabal of the crazed and the
> disappointed to cause mayhem on this list.

Nor does this type of confused argument get us anywhere. Above, Gary wants
the moderators to take action against Bob's "personal abuse" and two
sentences later talks about "a cabal of the crazed and the disappointed".
Is that not "personal abuse" as well?

Jerry



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