Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 12:45:24 -0700
From: David Horowitz <Dhorowitz@earthlink.net>
To: sixties-l@lists.village.virginia.edu, richard poe <RichardPoe@aol.com>
Subject: Re: [sixties-l] a plea
This will pass Ted because, dealing with the obtuse can become tedious. I'm
still waiting for a reasonable exchange here.
You agree with Stew Albert but you don't agree -- which is it? Albert says
everyone on the left knows the Panthers "turned pure criminal". Are you not
on the left? Do you disagree with Stew.
I'm glad you agree somewhat with me. But you wouldn't know about any
criminal activities of the Panthers if it weren't for my efforts. So don't
be so smug.
What your post tells me is that the left has changed very littlie since I
left it, probably not all. You don't want to deal with the facts. You don't
want to engage in a civil discussion with someone who disagrees with you.
You want to demonize them. In other words you want to achieve the same thing:
silencing your opposition. Do you wonder that progressives killed so many
people in our lifetimes?
Finally, as to ad hominems, the moderater has done his/her best to control
this discussion, but only ones I see that have slipped through have come
from my "criticis". Do you have examples of others.
Ted Morgan wrote:
> Folks,
> I was dumbfounded to discover the 55 messages, almost all from 60s-l,
> this morning. I have to say that I empathize with Joe McDonald's
> frustration and agree with Stew Albert' read. List folks should realize
> there's no real enlightenment to be gained by an "exchange" with David
> Horowitz on this one. There has certainly been --substantiated by
> different sources-- thuggishness, violence, and criminality among the
> ranks of the Panthers and/or their followers. For Horowitz, that
> apparently defines the Panthers. For others on this list, myself
> included, it doesn't. But equally clearly, Horowitz goes well beyond an
> insistence that "the Left" (which he sees as universally embracing
> everything about the Panthers) acknowledge this fact, into arenas of
> sweeping selective generalization, ad hominem attack, and blatant
> inaccuracy regarding people on the Left. [David, perhaps you can
> appreciate the irony of your situation; no one on the Left is likely to
> take your word for the "facts" about the Panthers, because the
> additional 'baggage' of your attacks undermines your credibility.]
>
> Arguments about this would seem to go nowhere, so it would seem prudent
> to let it go or at least not get 'hooked' into the same kind of
> denunciation. If necessary, perhaps the moderator could be a little
> more pro-active in screening ad hominem attacks, at an earlier point in
> the discussion. But, don't go, Joe; hopefully, this, too will pass!
>
> Ted Morgan
>
> P.S. Good post, Marty!
> PP.S. So, who the hell is this Richard Poe that every single one of
> David's responses is copied to?
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