Profit and loss

[Mike Weaver]

Jbor:
>-- because such undivided political commitment is (imo purposely) never
>evident in the texts, sympathies for one or another character or movement or
>system are almost always immediately undercut. (This would be the essence of
>a true dialectic btw.)

A dialectical view (as I see it) is that  dynamic processes are driven by 
the tension between the polarities that are found within. The direction of 
the motion is decided by which polarities are dominant. Pynchon's maturity 
as a political observer (IMO) is his portrayal of those polarities at every 
level he describes. His sympathies still shine through. Your "true 
dialectic" would have no motion, just a stasis of equal but opposite.


>what *positive*,
>*practical* alternatives are being proposed by the anti-globalisation lobby?
>Instead of sabotage and destruction why don't they offer something
>constructive and conciliatory which the powers that be (corporate, national
>governments, and international organisations and agencies such as the UN and
>the WTO) might actually be disposed and able to work with.

Ever since capitalism became a recognisable system on this planet, people 
have been making proposals of one kind or another for ways to alleviate the 
destruction that chasing profit causes.

Trouble is, most of the peaceful proposals have added up to saying "please 
change your ways" to people whose own, self-perceived, interests are best 
served by carrying on as before.

It is only the threat of forthright resistance which has brought about long 
lasting benevolent changes in the system. And those changes have been 
eroded/dismantled as fast as is possible.  Here in the UK the Thatcherite 
programme of privatisation of social structures continues in the safe hands 
of Blair's New Labour, removing the social gains implemented after WW2, and 
steadily constructing a more authoritarian form of capitalism in the 
process.       The debate as to whether capitalist globalization is 
'totalitarian' is a red herring. It is the simple moral authoritarian 
element that needs watching.