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
> >