Re: [OPE-L] On recent events in London and elsewhere

From: Michael Williams (michaelj.williams@TISCALI.CO.UK)
Date: Fri Jul 15 2005 - 07:34:31 EDT


Phil,

I am prepared to admit into my ontology cricket-playing suicide bombers.
After all, many left-wing revolutionaries (including no doubt some on this
list) have come from a bourgeois background and yet at one time or another
espoused and implemented political violence. I could construct a Marxist
critique of pre-modern society, religion, ideology, the bourgeois media, the
bourgeois state as well as specifically of the capitalist economy that could
account for the London bombings without resource to fantastical
conspiratorial notions that drive your story. Such an account could, of
course, call for investigation of some of the assertions you throw up: for
example, the notion that as political repressive state apparatuses (don't
you just love those old Althusserion concepts?) under huge political and
public pressure for quick results may have persuaded themselves of people's
guilt prior to legal proceedings

I could also construct many more plausible conspiracy theories than yours,
all with sound Marxisant credentials. Given my respect for OPE-L subscribers
and the implicit 'scientific' nature of our discourse, however, I would have
promulgated such conspiracies on one of the many web-sites (from all
political perspectives) that enjoy such game-playing.

Phil, have you not noticed that on this issue on this list you are almost
talking to yourself - until I allowed myself to be drawn in?

[PS: for the record, I am totally opposed to political violence both on
ethical and pragmatic political grounds. That is to say I would never engage
in such violence nor encourage others to do so. This does not mean that I
would publicly condemn groups who feel they can demonstrate their situation
to be so desperate and intractable that they see violence as the only
possible course of action.]

michael
------------------------------------
Michael Williams
Harrow Business School (E3.09)
Watford Road
Harrow
Middlesex
HA1 3TP
tel: 020 7911 5000 #4563
fax: 020 7911 5931
Home tel: 023 80768641
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michaelj.williams@tiscali.co.uk
M.J.Williams02@wmin.ac.uk
mobile: 07906 172655
http://www.wmin.ac.uk/mwilliams

-----Original Message-----
From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of Howard
Engelskirchen
Sent: 15 July 2005 03:28
To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
Subject: Re: [OPE-L] On recent events in London and elsewhere

not funny


----- Original Message -----
From: "Philip Dunn" <pscumnud@DIRCON.CO.UK>
To: <OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 2:54 PM
Subject: Re: [OPE-L] On recent events in London and elsewhere


Hi Andrew

I hear you have taken to keeping explosives in the bathtup oop North.  Makes
a
change from coal. :-) (I was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne.)

The money question is: who is prepared to admit cricket loving suicide
bombers
into their ontology?

Phil

Quoting Andrew Brown <A.Brown@LUBS.LEEDS.AC.UK>:

> Hello from Leeds.
>
> Leeds -- like rest of UK -- very different culture from Spain and NY in
ways
> I don't have time, nor knowledge, to analyse. Anyway, there's no need for
> police occupation - there is, on the other hand, a world press occupation
of
> some previously anonymous backstreets.
>
> Andy
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: OPE-L on behalf of glevy@PRATT.EDU
> Sent: Thu 14/07/2005 17:28
> To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
> Cc:
> Subject: Re: [OPE-L] On recent events in London and elsewhere
>
>
>
>       Don't we have a member (or members) in Leeds?  What's it like
>       there?  Had the 'terrorists' come from my community in New
>       York City, I can tell you that it would be locked-down and
>       under police occupation.  But, maybe that's a difference
>       between the situation 'there' and 'here'?  To what extent will
>       this event further empower Blair and his 'Labour' (!) agenda?
>
>       The popular response in London to the events there are quite
>       different -- it seems to me from afar -- to the reaction of
>       people in Madrid after the events there.  Why is that?  Shouldn't
>       it be obvious to everyone that the events in London are
>       connected to the war against Iraq?
>
>       In solidarity, Jerry
>       Belfast, Maine
>
>
>


Philip Dunn

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