Re: Re: Back to the 21st Century, was Re:...Vulnerable Planet...

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

>Aztec Mexico may have been a better place than Mexico City by some
>standards of measurement (e.g., air pollution), but I doubt that
>today's ordinary Mexicans, in or out of Mexico City, really agree
>with you.
>
>Yoshie

I doubt that any ordinary Mexican could make a meaningful choice. This is
really a question for left intellectuals to grapple with. It requires some
depth of knowledge that comes from books like Soustelle's "Daily Life of
the Aztecs". You, Doug and Ken Hanly might have trouble swallowing what I
am saying, but Michael Parenti does not:

>>Referring to what the English colonizers did to the Irish, Frederick
Engels wrote in 1856: "How often have the Irish started out to achieve
something, and every time they have been crushed politically and
industrially. By consistent oppression they have been artificially
converted into an utterly impoverished nation." So with most of the Third
World. The Mayan Indians in Guatemala had a more nutritious and varied diet
and better conditions of health in the early 16th century before the
Europeans arrived than they have today. They had more craftspeople,
architects, artisans, and horticulturists than today. What is called
underdevelopment is not an original historical condition but a product of
imperialism's superexploitation. Underdevelopment is itself a development.<<

Basically, I am working to create a dividing line on the left where people
who feel repelled by what Michael Parenti can go their way and the rest of
us will go ours. I am sure you understand.

Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/