Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1996 10:45:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: Review of Hans's moderation principles


On Sun, 25 Aug 1996, Hans Ehrbar wrote:

> 
> One often-heard thought is: since this list is so important, we must
> make sure that it is not sabotaged or clogged up by "mindless drivel".
> Therefore the desire to purge the "parasites" and "non-contributors"
> in order to get a clean list.  This fascist outlook misses an
> important point: the list can only be derailed by an intruder if the
> intruder knows something the list does not know.
> 

Louis: Hans, what you don't seem to get is that the list consists of
hard-core members like you, me, Rakesh, Doug, etc. and the barnacles we
have accumulated over the past six months like Martens, Malecki, Rodwell,
"Neil" and MIM. We are stagnating.

Someone new to the list will not have the patience to stick it out and
enter into a dialog with serious Marxists. They will take one look at
Malecki's purposely bad grammar or Rodwell's "Bolshevik-Leninist"
phrase-mongering and head for the hills.

I was on a Beat Generation mailing list briefly that had about the same
volume as the Marxism list. I wanted to have a discussion with people who
were deeply engaged with this literature, which played such a major role
in my own spiritual evolution. Of the hundred or so posts a day, there
were always 5 or 6 that were in this groove. Most of the rest were
X-generation folks talking about CD's or movies that had some connection
with the Beats. God bless them, this was just not what I was interested in
so I unsubbed.

I want to be on a list that includes the sort of people who give and take
classes at the Brecht Forum in NY. We never see hide nor hair from the
likes of MIM or Rodwell. This is not fascism, this is political
differentiation.

If an unmoderated list exists that has the same characteristics as M1,
without the leavening of non-vanguardist members, it would collapse in a
week. Who would want to be in the middle of a nonstop flame war between
people like Rodwell and Malecki on one side and Martens and MIM on the
other?

Not me.



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