This is provokingly pessimistic.  Most of Europe is governed by Socialist
parties, almost all of East Europe is as well as the largest nation in the
world.

At 09:26 PM 6/12/02 -0500, you wrote:
>All statements, positive or negative, about "The Left" are false or,
>more precisely, utterly vacuous -- for at the present in the U.S. (and
>it seems in most nations)"The Left" simply doesn't exist. There are
>fairly large numbers of leftists, but we have been unable (since roughly
>the defeat of ERA) to organize ourselves in any coherent way. So to
>speak of "The Left" as "arrogant" is pretty damn arrogant itself. I
>think Lou Proyect's blast in a vacuum against Chomsky was pretty stupid
>-- but it is equally stupid to make his particular error stand either
>for "The Left" in general (or, for that matter, to make it stand for
>"Lou-Proyect-in-General." One of Lou's major faults is that he thinks it
>important to "characterize" people politically. That is silly and
>unproductive. It is equally unproductive to characterize Lou Proyect.
>
>(For what it's worth, my view of Noam Chomsky has not changed since 1969
>or so: he is, as someone said, a national treasure. But he also has
>false politics--his own characterization of his politics at one time was
>"Marxist Anarchist." I didn't read all of Lou's post -- I've got better
>things to do with my time. The post shouldn't have been written, but
>probably it is abstractly correct, and also, at the present time, quite
>pointless.)
>
>Carrol Cox
>
>David Griffin wrote:
> >
> > But, the "left" needs not get defensive every time aspects of it are
> > criticized. Are there not substantive criticisms to be made of
> different left
> > movements? If so, why not look the criticisms in the face and deal with
> > whatever grain of truth they might have, rather than dismissing them
> > outright?
> >
> > -- David
> > In a message dated 6/10/2002 9:02:49 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> > [log in to unmask] writes:
> >
> > > If there's one thing that will be the death of me and (is) the death
> of the
> > > progressive movement, it's the arrogance of the left.
> > > ***FLASH*** Noam Chomsky is not perfect!!
> > > ("Quick nurse, the morphine!").
> > > Lets see...humans are imperfect, Noam Chomsky is human (from Neptune,
> yes,
> > > but still human), ergo... Noam Chomsky is ??
> > > If I EVER meet a leftist who gives another credit I think I will S***!
> > > Constantly tearing down others of value is not how we will succeed.
> > > I don't know about you, but I have a young child at home.
> > > Succeed we must!
> > > Regards,
> > > Ken Eidel
> > >