stunning ‘first things first’ mentality amongst marxists

Posted: January 30, 2009 at 12:39 pm    |  2 Comments

Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:22:04 -0500
From: Julio Huato <juliohuato@gmail.com>
Subject: [lbo-talk] New list for Marxists / Nueva lista para Marxistas
To: Louis Proyect <lnp3@panix.com>, pen-l@lists.csuchico.edu,  Lbo Talk <lbo-talk@lbo-talk.org>

I’d like to announce the birth of a new list for Marxists.  Mutual help, political cooperation, and comradely debate focused on issues and challenges, political and theoretical, is invited.  To register, visit its web page at:

http://groups.google.com/group/marxist-debate

–

On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 2:21 PM, geert lovink <geert@desk.nl> responded:

hi, why do marxists make use of google? to run such a thing on independent servers is ssooooo easy. why? are you informed about the issues that surround google? (http://www.googlizationofeverything.com/)

best, geert

–

Hi Geert,

I don’t know about other Marxists, but in my case I do because that’s easiest, most economical for me right now.  This is to a large extent due to the fact that I’m not technologically sophisticated.  Having said that, if we grow as a list and this Google thing becomes too much of a constraint, then we’ll move the list to some other venue.  First things first.

Thanks for your interest,

Julio

Responses

Feed Trackback Address
  1. Peter says:

    January 30th, 2009 at 10:32 pm (#)

    Hi Geert,

    Aren’t you being a little hard on this guy? Most Marxists I know use Microsoft software. Cracked copies most often, but still. I’ve seen a lot of Marxist presentations made with Powerpoint. There are a number of reasons for this. For one thing, it’s all they know. Many activists simply don’t know about the FOSS movement. Or they don’t realize that they don’t have to be technologically savvy in order to use open infrastructure. People like you could help them find out, maybe?

    It’s an interesting question. Is it ideologically ‘acceptable’ for Marxists to use Capitalist infrastructure to get their message across? Or do they simply justify all they fight against that way. Should we all stop using Google for web searches, and if so, what’s the alternative?

    Having said that, I don’t think Marxists need yet another discussion group, I’d much rather see some direct action. Fidel and Ché didn’t start a Facebook group, they bought guns. So let’s start building this new economy already.

    Thanks for the enjoyable read,
    Peter

  2. Silly Marxists…Google Is For Capitalists! « extensions says:

    January 31st, 2009 at 2:32 pm (#)

    [...] 31, 2009 · No Comments Note this exchange on Geert Lovink’s blog. If this is the state of marxist thinking today, well, I am pretty [...]

Leave a Response