[Marxism] I second the Moratorium on old people acting like middle schoolers

[brendan cooney <callmecooney@xxxxxxxxx>]

As a younger list member I've often considered writing in to give my two 
cents about what I find useful and not useful about the list. The 
current deluge of Walter-spam gives me this excuse.

I am interested in furthering my understanding of Marxist theory. That's 
it. I like it when people post interesting articles about marxism, when 
they debate theory, when they recommend books or websites, when I can 
write in a question about simple reproduction equations and get a 
response, etc. That's about 10 percent of what happens on this list. 
Everything else is a waste of my time.

I don't like wading through dozens of posts of New York Times articles. 
(Hello people, it's 2009 we can all read the Times online. I glance at 
their headlines every morning along with most of the civilized world. 
What is the point of forwarding times articles to this list?) I don't 
like wading through a six-month long debate about Obama's mojo. I don't 
like watching greying sectarians battle over how best to interpret minor 
historical events. And I hate the constant Louis-Walter debate.

This list advertises itself as being outside of the old-school 
trotskyist, sectarian squabbling. That's why I signed up for it. I 
appreciate Louis's intention in this regard. But apparently it's harder 
than it looks to do this.

In my fantasy list people would only discuss political and economic 
theory. There would only be references to news and historical events if 
they were accompanied by theoretical interpretation. There would be a 
lot of discussion about the theoretical meaning of the current crisis, 
what socialism would look like, and how to build leftist movements again.

There is a lot of information on the web. It's hard to wade through it 
all and find what is relevant and what to trust. We are just beginning 
as a society to grapple with this very real and serious problem. Members 
of this list should do more to think before they post. Ask yourself: "Is 
what I am posting really important to people who have come here to 
discuss Marxism?" or, more simply, "What would Marx post?"

Brendan

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