Re-orienting the discussion

I hope gunder frank does not subscribe from the list. Those of us with
experience in movement activism know that one form of sabotage of movement
activities is to simply create disruptions that "wear out" the serious
people.  Sometimes others, who are well-meaning,  understandably "take the
bait" and respond to personal attacks when they are attacked. But it can
have a wearing effect on the majority of readers.

Gunder Frank is one of the bright lights of this list; even when I don't
agree with him, I learn something from him. And even when he loses his
temper, he always explains the SUBSTANTIVE reason why, and we usually learn
from that also. Before giving up on a list that seems to be spinning its
wheels and not getting anywhere, it is worth trying to "reorient" the
discussion. More concrete analysis is what is most helpful--unfortunately, I
don't do much basic research into international political economy and don't
have much to offer on that dimension although on the political dimension of
analysis we all have access to information. With the world is such a state
of flux---both disintegration of old orders and agglomeration of new
alliances---there is plenty to analyze and debate,  from coffee and military
hardware in the Horn of Africa to cocaine in the Andes to oil pipelines in
West Asia, potential ethnic strife in China, possible alliances/conflict
between China/Russia/India, South Africa's developing neutrality, and so on
and on. Hopefully, as the "academic winter vacation" comes to an end, there
will be broader participation to redirect the discussion.

Alan Spector



----- Original Message -----
From: <franka@fiu.edu>
To: "Daniel Pinéu" <danielfrp@hotmail.com>
Cc: <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 11:59 AM
Subject: Re: your mail


> I definitely do share all of Daniel Pineu's observation and
> reservations about current wsn 'offerigns', and rely almost entirely on
> the delete button, and am very tempted in a hurry to do the same as DP
> and to use the un-sub me one
> sincerely and truly yours
>
> gunder frank
>
> On Thu, 18 Jan 2001, Daniel Pinéu wrote:
>
> > Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 16:15:44 -0000
> > From: Daniel Pinéu <danielfrp@hotmail.com>
> > To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu
> >
> > Dear fellow members,
> > Dear moderators,
> >
> > When i joined the WSN list some almost a year ago, i was hoping to find
> > living, intellectually stimulating, fresh debate about World-Systems
Theory.
> >
> > Fresh after making my acquaintance with the seminal works of
Wallerstein, AG
> > Frank, Chase Dunn and other "classics", I was looking for a place of
open
> > theoretical debate to explore the enormous potential of World Systems
> > theorizing within Social Sciences, and especially my own field of
studies:
> > International Relations.
> >
> > Apparently i was mislead to believe that the WSN mailing list was such a
> > place.
> >
> > Lately i was surprised to discover that the main objective of the list,
so
> > it seems, is rather to
> >
> > a)Relentlessly dissect and (re)elaborate on Marxist theory, despite the
fact
> > that there are specialized mailing lists for that purpose
> >
> > b)Engage in personal (and sometimes blatantly non-academical) attacks on
> > fellow members
> >
> > c)Share with the list a wide variety of info about left wing activism,
> > conspiracy theories, human rights violations, and other personal and
public
> > concerns.
> >
> > I don`t know whether any more fellow members share this view, but i hope
the
> > number is significant enough for the moderators to do something about
it. At
> > this moment of my intellectual life, however, i have no more time to
waste
> > on vast amounts of virtually useless emails which keep circulating
through
> > the list.
> >
> > So, i am sorry to do this, but i am unsubscribing from the list. I would
> > like to say it has been an interesting experience, but the
aforementioned
> > reasons speak for themselves in showing that it wasn't.
> >
_________________________________________________________________________
> > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at
http://www.hotmail.com.
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>                  ANDRE  GUNDER  FRANK
>
>          1601 SW  83rd Avenue, Miami, FL.  33155 USA
>       Tel: 1-305-266  0311   Fax:  1-305  266 0799
>              E-Mail :  franka@fiu.edu
>    Web/Home Page:  http://csf.colorado.edu/archive/agfrank
>
>
>
>