Dennis Grammenos wrote:
> Although I am rather ambivalent on whether fascists should be
> silenced, I reject the usual bourgeois platitudes about "freedom of
> speech."
>
> What is freedom of speech?
> More importantly for WHOM is freedom of speech?
>
> It is a chimera hoisted by the bourgoisie to lend moral legitimacy to
> their asphyxiating control over the means and modes of communication.
At this point I get a little uncomfortable. If there is a single badge
of membership in the bourgeoisie, I would have thought that the ability
to post a computer message might be it.
Still, Dennis might be striving for something higher than the interests
of his class, so I soldier on.
> Freedom of speech is for those who can afford it, not for the masses
> that
> are tossed the leftovers and are regaled with tales of freedoms they
> can
> barely sniff let alone taste.
A bit more of the same discomfort: clearly he is one of the ones who can
afford it. Look, here I am reading his screed, internationally
distributed yet.
> The line they feed us with is that "there are always two sides to a
> story," or "one must be fair," or "one should be balanced," blah,
> blah,
> blah...
"They"!! Who is this "they"?
It doesn't really matter. Here's the important point, to my mind:
thereis no pretence that Dennis is a bourgeois looking to something
better. Rather there is the outright denial that he is.
I'm sorry, but this looks like a lie to me -- and a pretentious one
which is extraordinarily common among self-styled leftists. I say
"self-styled"because I don't see how you can build a left on foundations
of pretence and dishonesty. These are the tools of privilege, not of
egalitarianism.
> Oddly enough, such principles never apply to the dominant discourse
> they
> force-feed us with!
"Force-feed" he says. From his signature it looks like the guy is a
teacher, fer crying in the
beer! -dlj.