[PEN-L:825] boddhisatva responds

[boddhisatva <kbevans@xxxxxxxxx>]

		To whom....,



	At the point I am accused of writing "virulent racism" I have to
defend myself but I'll wait for a moment and first thank the people who
wrote supporting me: Thanks, I'm pleased and a little surprised by the
whole thing.


	I was pondering why I might have caused such a stir and I came up
with a few reasons.  First, when I get worked up I tend to post a lot
which is really something I should control.  While it may give the
impression that I'm trying to dominate the conversation or something, I
can assure you it is just a childish lack of restraint.  I also may
communicate badly at times. I sometimes include partial thoughts that can
be misinterpreted.  I also enjoy arguing and see it as a positive process.
Those two last things together seem to combine to prompt people to ascribe
beliefs to me that I do not have and have not put forward.  I think
preconceptions play a role in that process as well.  I am flip and
sometimes a little rude. I accept any criticism on that score although I
think that I have certainly got better than I have given in this present
context.


	Before getting to that subject, I'd like to address a criticism
Lou Proyect leveled at me.  It is a familiar one.  When I first started
subscribing to mailing lists I noticed that many discussions fell into
endless pseudo-debates that were really just citation contests and battles
of historical arcana. I realize that these lists are populated by
academics, I know a few myself (I even live with one), and I know that the
academic lives by the citation as the mafioso lives by the knife and gun.
I don't find them useful.  I have a personal rule that dictates I delete
anything with too many proper names.  I don't believe history is made by
"great men" and I don't believe that the great thinkers are authorities.
They may be people whose ideas have withstood the test of argument, but a
person cannot cite them to shelter himself from argument.  Citations are a
legitimate shorthand, but I believe the most honest and useful exchange of
ideas occurs when people are forced to make their own arguments on their
own terms.  The truth is truly what *WE* make it.


	Now to get to C. Craven's charge of "virulent racism" the defense
is simple.  The charge is so much nonsense.  In fact, it's difficult to
understand where it comes from, so long as we stipulate that it must come
from *something* I actually wrote.  My post was so short that a close
reading may be in order and it may even illuminate the source and
character of some misunderstanding.


	First, I asked what the native Canadians intended to do with the
land they've won or will win in their legal battles.  This is really the
nub of the issue since the entire thread is about native people and their
mode of production.  The next two sentences are just specific restatements
of the first general question.  Jim Craven might have interpreted these
statements as dismissive, but they can also be understood as *simple*
questions.  In fact when I say "These are all pretty depressed industries
right now" it should suggest that I am actually considering the economic
viability of the native Canadians' options.  Not so to C. Craven,
apparently.  I further ask where, in this capitalist world, the native
Canadians are going to get the money to develop the land and whether this
might not endanger the very values that are meant to be preserved.



	Now it could be that the very suggestion native Canadians would
develop lands or use capitalist money are offensive to the underlying
concept C.  Craven is putting forward.  I hope so.  I think it is a bogus
concept.  I think, as I have stated, that native Canadians do not want to
use the land to pursue a stone-age economy.  That doesn't mean they aren't
entitled to the land or that they are facetious or anything else.  I never
suggested that and I never would.  It means they're reasonable people.
What I am questioning is what role this struggle, righteous though it may
be, has in liberating the masses of people.  If you'll remember, that is
the question I first brought up in the thread.


	As for the quip about the Mohegan Sun casino (I've never really
been there), it was meant to be provocative but it certainly wasn't
racist.  The waitresses at the Mohegan Sun are generally not (if the
commercials are any indication) native Americans, but they *are* dressed
up in a parody of native Americans.  That is also true at other casinos on
reservations from what I've read.  What I was suggesting is that the
casino industry has proved both disrespectful of native culture and
entirely capitalist, employing working people in the same way any other
capitalist business does and with the same lack of respect for *their*
dignity.  As my previous questions might have suggested, I think this was
inevitable but *nowhere* did I suggest that it was the fault of the
indigenous people.


	As I said, I think preconceptions are at work here as well as
whatever carelessness I might have engaged in.  As for my own personal
politics, every time I'm described as a libertarian or a conservative, I
save it to send to my friend who is both so he can have a good laugh.  He
vilifies me as a statist and a liberal when we argue.  I am in fact
somewhere between a market socialist and an anarcho-syndicalist.  I'm a
Red who is not afraid of the workings of commerce and money.  I don't
think the market is a bad thing although I think capitalism is an evil
thing. Frankly, I reject the conflation of the market and capitalism as I
reject the conflation of socialism with a command economy.  In fact I
think that describes my philosophy: I'm an anti-conflationist. I can't say
whether that means I undermine the list.  I think that is propbably up to
the list.


	I'd like to apologize generally for antagonizing the list and I'd
like to apologize specifically to Jim Craven, Lou Proyect and Michael
Perelman for being flip with them and a smart-ass. I never meant to offend
anybody.  As far as Doug Henwood goes: You've got your nerve, Doug, I'll
give you that.





	peace