Oaxaca, Thursday, November 24, 2005

Hi MIke,

      Thus far you have posted 17 (seventeen!) items this month. You almost
never write anything yourself, so far as I know, but mostly simply forward
materials from PT/TP or League Discuss. Truthfully, I usually just hit the
delete key when something from you shows up -- maybe I look at the first
sentence or two -- because I'm turned off by it. But the other day Maurice
Bazin reposted an item on France (which you had originally put up) and the
brief exchange between you and him included:

      "Maurice, Thank you for your farvorable respose to "WHY IS FRANCE
BURNING?". I appreciate your posts so i am anxious to understand your
criticism of mine. My last post was the Peoples Tribune Radio program about
New Orleans and Katrina.We think that the abandonement of the poor by those
in power was an example of the future which we face and which was opposed by
millions..The PTR program contained the reactions of progressive New Orleans
natives like Professors Adolph Reed Jr, Walda Katz-Fishman and Ted Quant to
the tragedy, I hope you will listen to them and share your thoughts, Thanks"

      Where you say, "We think that the abandonment . . .", you make
explicit what has bothered me (and I would guess those who have simply set
filters to block your posts). That expression, We think, is so reminiscent
of the dogmatic self-proclaimed would-be avant guard groups such as, for
example the Progressive Labor Party, in which the cadre regurgitate the
party line, saying "We think . . ." where in fact the cadre -- the "troops"
-- if they are "properly" obedient, don't really think. Their assigned tasks
are merely to disseminate the current party line.

      I have wondered sometimes whether it was simply your responsibility to
"feed the line" to the Science for the People listserv, but I refrained
until now from writing it. You are not the only one who posts a lot of
material (as I am writing this your post on the Zapatistas just arrived, #18
this month) and who rarely, if ever, says what you think. In my opinion that
undercuts what ought to be the function of this list, i.e. to be a
DISCUSSION list. It is trivially easy to simply forward things, and it may
feel as though doing so contributes to our understanding, but a real problem
we need to deal with is how to cope with the flood of written materials,
many of which are of negligible value. The question for me always is "What
should I read?" If we committed ourselves to expressing our own thoughts, to
actually entering into thoughtful discussions, and not just fowarding
materials to the list, that could make the Science for the People listserv
much more valuable.

Sincerely, --George