From: Carrol Cox <cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: Moderator stuff
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 14:37:35 -0600 (CST)


There is an old tradition in communist groups (all to little honored
perhaps, but that is a separate issue) that among comrades and even
would-be comrades one attacks principles, not persons. To put it in less
lofty terms, it is possible *sometimes* within a group of people to
develop a shared attitude which allows one to call a statement stupid
without calling its maker a stupid person. Every so often this dynamic
develops, at least embryonically, among subsets of subscribers to the
marxist lists. It seems to me that Mark's post below points in this
direction. All of us are sometimes wrong, stupidly wrong, but we should be
able to fight on those occasions without threatening to destroy the list.
I am far less sanguine than Ben Seattle about the political potential of
the internet, but certainly there is enough of a provisional case for such
potential to make it worth fighting for.

I take it this means both trying (usually) to avoid sheer provocations but
ALSO ignoring such provocations when they come from someone whose
contributions are otherwise positive.

Carrol


> 
> Lou Godena, you proposed barring Louis Proyect (the best Marxist on the
> Internet) from M-Int.
> 
> This was a mistake.
> 
> It is in your engaging, quirky character to admit you proposed and
> failed in what was a silly thing anyway (but you are not a silly
> person). If you succeed in barring Louis Proyect, I will follow him out
> of M-Int. He is a personal as well as political comrade, and a friend.
> I will not abandon a friend like him.
> 
> The test of friendship is solidarity in struggle. By that test Louis 
> Proyect is peerless, which you do know and it is shameful even to have
> to
> say it. I admire him, and we stand shoulder-to-shoulder in struggles in 
> which you have not yet participated. I hope you will, if you continue 
> at all. 
> 
> I look forward to the moment when you return to us. Let us learn
> the real meaning of solidarity and commit ourselves
> openly to the struggle we are all dignified by sharing. 
> 
> Mark Jones
> 
> 
> 
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> 



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