Re: 2001 Prometheus Award finalists, Best [Libertarian Science Fiction] Novel

From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Sat Apr 14 2001 - 17:29:02 MDT


At 11:46 AM 4/14/01 -0700, Hal wrote:

>I've been trying to read The Stone Canal, and it's heavy going.

>What's an ILP'er? Who's Dietzgen?

I'm startled at Hal's lack of guess power, not to mention agooglitude.

http://palissy.humana.univ-nantes.fr/labos/cht/biblio/ouvrages/livre209.htm

might be a hint. And ILP is doubtless International Labour Party or
something along those lines.

>What's the SPGB?

Well, surely you won't need to call a friend for that one. Socialist Party
Great Britain.

>Wow! Stirner! Who's Stirner?

I'm quite shocked by this question, and start to wonder if I'm having my
leg pulled. Max Stirner.

http://allison.ee.washington.edu/~davisd/egoist/stirner/bookhtml/The_Ego.html

>Who's the MPLA?

PLA is always People's Liberation Army. In this case, the Popular Movement
for the Liberation of Angola.

>What is Huambo?

The chief town of inland Angola, where the MPLA frequently fight UNITA (the
Union for Total Independence of Angola).

> -- let me see --" he made a pretence of counting on his fingers
> "-- a split, from a split, from a split, from the Fourth International
> to call *me* a sectarian!"

>Wow, what a put-down. He sure got her, eh? But what's the Fourth
>International? And why would she have called him a sectarian?

The Fourth International is one of the major Trotskyite sects or fractions.
I thought you guys were supposed to be up to the mark on the Red Menace?

http://www.wsws.org/index.shtml

The wonderful density of MacLeod's books depends enormously on knowing all
this grimy, repulsive, anguished, bitter, comic stuff. I was never part of
it, of course, but I looked on with amazement as many of my friend's
friends fought demarcation battles over such marxist-leninist theodicies.

>I was in college in the 1970s. I'm the same age as these characters.
>Maybe I didn't hang out with the right people,

You didn't hang about with the left people.

Damien Broderick



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