An additional word of explanation:
One of the moderators of the Marxism list felt that the existence of our
list was sabotaging discussions related to political economy on
Marxism. Despite repeated efforts to explain to that person that this was
not the case, the person (who has been under a large amount of stress
recently) was not convinced (or even remembered my explanations). I
explained what was in the post that I sent to the Marxism list to him
privately and argued that the reason that there was a fall-off in
discussions related to political economy in recent months was due to a
combination of the high volume of that list and the "culture" of flaming,
swipes at "academics", and other kinds of nonsense that many serious
people were unwilling to put up with.
The individuals who I mentioned as being part of OPE-L were selected with
this in mind, i.e. that they are not now nor have they ever been (as far
as I know) members of the Marxism list. There was no intent to slight any
members by _not_ mentioning their names.
If anyone who is a member of the Marxism list wants to discuss OPE-L on
that list, they are, of course, free to do so.
In OPE-L Solidarity,
Jerry