FW: NP Of interest

[jbor]

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From: jbor <jbor at bigpond.com>
Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2002 10:00:04 +1100
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: FW: NP Of interest


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From: jbor <jbor at bigpond.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 10:58:56 +1100
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: FW: NP Of interest


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From: jbor <jbor at bigpond.com>
Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2002 10:54:12 +1100
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: FW: NP Of interest


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From: jbor <jbor at bigpond.com>
Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2002 10:54:07 +1100
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: Re: NP Of interest

Salusinszky is making a distinction between "the mainstream Left" and "the
radical, or socialist, or anti-capitalist, or 'intellectual' Left" (to this
latter group I would also add what I call the "stupid" Left), a valid
distinction in my opinion. In his opinion it's only those in the latter
group who hate America, and who have impeded the progress made by the Labour
movement since 1945.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/01/1036027034261.html

best


on 3/11/02 9:15 AM, barbara100 at jps.net at barbara100 at jps.net wrote:

> I really enjoyed the article.  Anybody wanna discuss it? It flowed along
> rather interestingly, but I got hung up on a couple of points, especially in
> the excerpts Jbor posted. How does the writer jump to the conclusion that
> the Left's real reason for hating America is because  "America stands for
> the idea that people should be free to live by their own lights, regardless
> of the opinions or convictions of others"? It seems like quite a leap.  Can
> we even assume that that sentence plucked from the writings of political
> theorist Chandran Kukathas was referencing the root cause of the Left hating
> America?  I'm rather skeptical.  I mean I'm not familiar with he works of
> Kakathas, but the sentence standing alone doesn't imply anything at all
> about the Left.  And if it the theorist's quote has no relation to the
> author's overall point about the Left, it doesn't serve the argument well.
> 
> And another thing that bothered me is how the author says, "...the very
> genuine achievements of the Labor movement since World War II have been made
> despite, rather than because of, their contribution" and then abruptly ends
> the paragraph without so much as one example of how the Left impeded the
> Labor movement's achievement (or at least I think "impeding" was the
> implication).  It's subtly worded, but it's quite an accusation, and if
> someone says it's true, they should be obligated to say how.  I certainly
> don't know if it's true,  but I'm not inclined to take any writer's word for
> it blankly.