[Marxism] Bring back Walter!

[Jeff <meisner@xxxxxxxxx>]

Although understandable, I think Louis' expulsion of Walter from this list 
was a bad idea. He should be re-admitted with no apologies required from 
either side.

Without rehashing the arguments, I will just point out one overriding 
concern. Walter speaks essentially as a representative of the Cuban 
government. Cuba is (in my view) the only workers state and one with a 
revolutionary perspective of sorts. Its views are extremely appropriate to 
be heard on this list. Expelling Cuba from this list is a gesture of 
unwarranted disrespect. Whether we agree with it or not, it is still of 
relevance when the Cuban government or leadership takes a positive view of 
Obama or his actions. That is something we should be informed of.

I share Louis' disgust with "apologetics for Barack Obama." But if my guess 
is right, Walter will have less and less material of that sort that could 
possibly be posted to the list. Moreover people can just ignore such posts, 
and already I would expect that most subscribers skip reading many messages 
given the high volume of this list. Having a few more messages to ignore 
would be no tragedy. I do not think it is helpful to the health of this list 
to try to decide beforehand what issues will be or won't be relevant, let 
alone which people are capable of posting useful material.

- Jeff

At 17:39 23/01/09 -0500, you wrote:
> 

>I have decided to remove Walter Lippmann from the Marxism list. After 
>having 4 years worth of sterile debate about supporting Thabo Mbeki or 
>Lula, the terrain has now switched apparently to apologetics for Barack 
>Obama. Walter can join the people at Portside if those are his politics. 
>This mailing list has to be a forum for people with a different kind of 
>politics. We have far too many serious differences within our 
>neighborhood of the left to waste time replying to troll bait over 
>family planning gag rules, stem cell research, etc. You can read this 
>kind of crap on Huffingtonpost or the Nation Magazine. We need to focus 
>on what the working class and its allies have to do to challenge the new 
>administration that is a continuation of the evils that came before it 
>going all the way back to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
>

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