Re: [Marxism] A promising interview with El Sal. pres-elect Funes

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greg wrote:
I agree it doesn't sound too promising, but if you expected Funes to say
anything different while trying to reaffirm his country's relationship to
the USA you really haven't been paying attention. Funes is a moderate. 
But establishing a preferential option for the poor on the basis of a
constitutional framework is, in context of the nazi cesspool known as
ARENA/El Salvador, a quite radical step. 

What did you expect? A public declaration of a move to become the second
Cuba of the Americas.

David replied:
doubt anyone expected this. All of us were responding to Fred's 
rather glib comment introducing the interview with the adjective 
"promising". We're all trying to figure out what's so "promising".

Fred responds: 
Well, the core list regulars have trouble seeing anything positive in the
program Funes puts forward. I would expect no less from such intractable and
irreconcilable revolutionaries. But Greg has put forward the right reasons
for a positive assessment so far, and anyone who read my previous recent
posts on El Salvador would have known in advance exactly why I would see his
position as promising.


Louis posits rejection of CAFTA as a precondition for an option for the
poor. My response to this ideologue's version of policy is "yecch". Foreign
policy is determined by domestic policy, not the other way around. So it was
in Venezuela and so it will be (for good and ill) in El Salvador.

The response to my recent posts suggest to me that the list "regulars" may
be looking for a substitute for Walter Lippmann to serve as a dart board, or
as a Stalinist "perp" on the rifle ranfew.

Why settle for substitutes? The original is available! Walter refuses to
reapply for membership on the list because he is convinced that his
exclusion for political reasons meant that re-applying in the usual way
would be rejected as a matter of course.

So why fire away at me?  Why settle for substitutes? Bring back Walter. It's
the right thing to do, and it will make my life easier.
Fred Feldman



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