Re: [OPE-L] Petty egoisms and pitiful absurdities

From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Mon Sep 04 2006 - 13:30:21 EDT


> The following was rejected by the server and Stavros asked me to post it
> for him. / In solidarity, Jerry
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <smavro@uom.gr>
> To: "OPE-L" <OPE-L@sus.csuchico.edu>
> Cc: <dlaibman@scienceandsociety.com>
> Sent: Monday, September 04, 2006 9:29 AM
> Subject: Petty egoisms and pitiful absurdities
>
>
>
> Dear comrades,
> this is adressed to the people that participate in OPE-L and are
> interested in its declared aims and not to a specific person (Rakesh
> Bhandari, RB) who I think has other motives.
>
> It is a belated message because I was on vacations and, afterwards, I did
> not find any reason to answer RB's nonsensical accusations.
>
> However, the whole affair seems to have erupted to something more general
> with RB continuing to smear persons and reputations (to the extent that he
> can) and having  somehow flooded OPE-L with messages full of personal hate
> and devoid of any theoretical significance.

Again I did not start the flame of TSSI.


 If OPE-L is turned into a
> lunatic's playground it  is a pity and it is a reason why serious people
> are driven away.
>
> My interest on Grossman is a long-term project having started some years
> ago,  involving several references and publications in Greek and in
> English,
> conferences, supervision of several theses etc. Anyone familar with
> academic practice knows where and how to search for a subject, references
> etc.
Fine. I search Grossman's name all the time, and I have not come up with
these contributions. So please do give me the citations. Of course I was
not aware of
your work in Greek.


>
> I do not read RB's messages for obvious reasons (incoherence, lack of
> proper references, flaming and personal attacks, verbosity etc.).

Sure. Lack of proper references?? Wow that's an interesting projection!!



Because
> of the current affair I read the particular thread on Grossman and I found
> that it contained nothing important to justify the time I spent.


Then you disagree with Trigg who said that it was always productive to engage
my views on Grossman. You did notice that my supposedly incoherent posts
elicited a careful reply by Andrew Trigg who hardly contributes to this
list!  Andrew Trigg also
made it clear that I had understood his arguments well.

And you have still offered a point by refutation of the arguments which I say
that you poached. Your post is almost entirely without actual substance as
to the actual
issues involved.  This should be obvious to anyone readng this from an
impartial point of view.


If RB
> thinks that he has something significant to contribute the road is open:
> write a formal paper and publish it.

OK.


>
> I think this affair highlights a growing danger for the OPE-L.

So you care about OPE-L, a list to which you do not contribute? Of course
you seem to read it
to get ideas about Grossman.


Although it
> started as a closed list focusing on serious and comradely debate it has -
> sometimes in the past and certainly in the current affair - degenarated
> into an internet forum where dawdlers spent their time and try to boost
> their ego usually by accusing other people so as to attract attention. Of
> course such a  thing does not contribute to the Left and Marxism but
> rather reproduces the worst forms of petty-bourgeois mentalities. I think
> that an end has to be put  to this or else the OPE-L will become another
> lame duck. I think that those that do not abide by the aims and the rules
> of contact of the list do not have a place in it.
>
you are not abiding by rules. I copied my posts in which I made the exact
points
that you repeated, including the use of Crotty to question the
relationship between
profits and investment.

I have supplied the evidence of my posts and listed the arguments that I
made that you just
repeated.

And are you saying that you did not read Trigg's replies to me two years
ago? Were Trigg's
posts also not worthy of your perusal? Notice that you have hardly been
clear about what you did read. If you read Trigg two years ago, then you
read me too because he was responding to me!


Rakesh

> Having said so, I feel that I do have to apologize for not having actively
> participated in OPE-L all these years. I would be more that willing to
> discuss any substantive issue arising from the Trigg paper and Grossman's
> contribution in general on the list (of course with anyone except RB).
>
> In solidarity
>
> Stavros Mavroudeas
>


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