Re: CHAT: SWP anecdotes (was: RE: (POLITICS!!!): Putting the duh in Florida)

On Sat, 9 Dec 2000, And Rosta wrote:

> David Bell:
> > early '60s.  Ah youth!
And last Tuesday, perhaps for the first time ever, the verb "bogart"
appeared (in a non-meta context) in the _New York Times_.  Ah, youth.

> My 2 Socialist Worker anecdotes:
>
> 1. An acquaintance and former colleague of mine was recruited to sell the
>    "Socialist Worker" newspaper. This he did, standing on the street
>    corner, calling "SO-cialist WOR-ker! -- Buy one, get one free!"
Well, this seems nitwitted on two levels at least, viz.  1) Who wants
two copies?  2) You can't buy socialist workers.  Which one(s) did your
acquaintance have in mind(?).

> 2. In *my* radical youth I was, up until the death of socialism in, iirc,
>    April 1985, a de facto (albeit dissenting) member of the SWP, but I never
>    officially joined, in case at some time in the future a totalitarian
>    regime took over the country and decided to purge former SWP members.
But suppose a t.r. took over the country and decided to purge former
non-members?

This is like Smullyan's rejoinder to Pascal's wager ("Bet on God, for if
you win, you win everything, and if you lose, you lose nothing"), namely
"Isn't it possible that the real God is a scientific type who has little
patience with people who believe things without evidence?"

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore
        --Douglas Hofstadter