NP Another Left academic describes Chomsky's responses to 11/9 as"misguided"

[jbor]

I'll echo Phil's Happy New Year and just pull the last couple of paragraphs
out of the McKnight article which I thought that he (and perhaps Mike
Weaver), at least, might have agreed with:

    The movement against exploitative corporate globalisation has been
    paralysed since September 11 by commentators who have cynically equated
    its protest against capitalism with bin Laden's terrorism (the perverse
    logic being that both groups are linked by their hatred of America).

    But the former is based on a notion of humanitarianism, that the several
    billion human beings on the planet deserve respect. The latter is based
    on possession of an ultimate truth in which only the faithful deserve
    respect.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/0112/29/spectrum/spectrum5.html

My issue with this was that exploitative corporate machinations are not
automatically synonymous with economic globalisation per se - they're a
component of both industrial and post-industrial capitalism and colonial
imperialism - and the subject populations have been being dissed for
centuries, both the "proletariat" in the First and Second Worlds and those
"cheap labour markets" in the colonies. My concept of economic
globalisation, or as I understand it from what Kofi Annan advocates, is that
it will ultimately operate on the same model as the other international
treaties on the environment and weapons and discrimination and refugees and
the like, in order to create a more equitable, co-operative and mutually
beneficial global economic environment. The way I see it, the current and
pre-existing economic set-up is *already* exploitative and inhumane, and has
to be changed, and many of the protesters against "globalisation", however
well-intentioned, are actually working to baulk change. It might be just a
question of strategy, but I think that the way forward is to work from
within the political systems which are giving the go-ahead to implement
change, rather than sabotaging the process altogether and allowing the
exploitative practices to continue unchecked.

As to the issue of pseudonyms I'd agree with both Phil and Paul that the use
of a pseudonym isn't a concern in the slightest, and that it's the content
of the post and the respect for others shown therein which is important. I
don't use a pseudonym - an ISP user name is an entirely different thing, and
unavoidable - but admit that they can be sometimes clever and amusing. I do
have a problem when someone tries to impersonate another poster, or hides
behind a pseudonym in order to insult others or disrupt discussion, or when
he or she floods the discussion with postings from three or four (or more)
different "pseudonyms" at the one time, or when the duplicity goes offlist.
And, all of these things happen here at various times.

On possible Pynchonian influences: there's a scene in David Lean's 'Lawrence
of Arabia' (1962) where the Arabic characters played by Omar Sharif and
Anthony Quinn exchange ritual insults about each other's parentage, which
for me was very reminiscent of the slanging match between the two servants,
Yusef and Meknes, at the Austrian Consulate party in Alexandria in Ch. 3 of
_V._ I wouldn't be surprised if certain of the themes of that very wonderful
movie caught Pynchon's imagination as well, and had found their way into the
final edit of his novel.

And, to Barbara, I'm very sorry for any actual offence I might have caused
you, but they's just "the facts", ma'am. At least, as I see them.

best


on 1/1/02 6:41 AM, Phil Wise at philwise at paradise.net.nz wrote:

> Happy new year everyone
> 
> I don't agree with jbor's political views much of the time (although I
> always appreciate his stuff on the texts), but I really don't see how "Rob
> J." typed backwards and in lower case is a "psuedonym" in this sense for
> someone who is, I believe, actually called Rob J.  If this is factually
> wrong, then I withdraw and apologise.
> 
> I don't mind the pseudonyms, or heated debate for that matter.  I do think
> that some real people typing into PCs could reign in their more childish
> impulses from time to time, though.
> 
> Phil [real, actual name... I'd prefer Redzinger any day - seriously cool]
>> 
>>> From: jbor <jbor at bigpond.com>
>>> To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>> Subject: Re: NP Another Left academic describes Chomsky's responses
> to11/9
>>> as"misguided"
>>> Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2001 18:13:59 +1100
>>> 
>> 
>>> No, I meant "others" as in those others who also post using pseudonyms.
>>>