[OPE] "Parasitism"

From: Jurriaan Bendien <adsl675281@tiscali.nl>
Date: Sat Jan 31 2009 - 13:22:15 EST

Jerry,

The whingers claim "frustration" because the argument isn't going their way and nobody is providing an easy answer, but your eliding tactics go from bad to worse, resulting in fresh accusations which require rebuttal.

First, you falsely accused me of arguing that "IF there is parasitism, THEN it will be clearly visible to all". When I show clearly that I did not argue this at all, you shift tack, and instead latch on to my claim that "If it was true that all capitalists were simply parasites, then capitalism would have been overthrown long ago."

You posture stridently and rhetorically "I said then, and I will say again, that this is nonsense". But you are still being "nonsensical" yourself, Jerry. You provide no good REASON or EVIDENCE for believing that what I say is nonsense, nor do you bother to ask me why I think this, and, in fact, what you did say before, does not even relate at all to what I said anyhow !!! Just because Jerry-the-authorative-Marxist says it is nonsense, doesn't mean something really is nonsense - we require a proof or demonstration, not an oath to leftist spirituality.

On 27 Jan 2009 you wrote that my argument "assumes that if there is mass awareness of parasitism then the parasites will be overthrown before too long" . This is actually a different argument from the one I provided - what I said is "when parasitism is publicly clearly visible it usually does not last very long", in support of my argument that "If it was true that all capitalists were simply parasites, then capitalism would have been overthrown long ago". You then say "mass action requires more than mass awareness of exploitation. Certainly, slaves in most slave societies were aware that the wealth of slave owners was based on their exploitation but that - of and in itself - did not end slavery."

As anyone capable of understanding an argument can plainly see, you again try to make me say things I do not say, and then you start grandstanding about "slave societies and slave owners" whereas I was explicitly speaking about "capitalists and capitalism". You and Paula just run together a whole ramshackle of ill-defined ideas to vent your leftist emotional hatred for the "capitalist parasites", but you provide no evidence that you have much of a clue about what you are talking about anyway, never mind understanding what my argument actually is.

Since in this thread you:

(1) flout elementary logic and the prerequisites for acceptable scholarly debate (bottom line there is that you do not misrepresent your opponent),
(2) fail to focus clearly on what is being argued,
(3) ignore Marx's basic distinction between exploitation and parasitism, substituting a rhetorical ruse about "mystification" for any convincing explanation of why exploitation and parasitism are identical concepts,

I will not pursue this thread further, except to expose the lies for what they are. The least I can say for Marx himself, is that he studied jurisprudence. If you had done the same, you would simply not be saying what you are saying, because you would know better.

Maybe at your American university they call your hollow, vulgar "I don't give a fuck" rhetorics about parasitism "scholarly argumentation", but over here we call it just "dumbed-down leftist nonsense" or "social envy", and it won't wash. Over and out.

Jurriaan

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Received on Sat Jan 31 13:24:16 2009

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