Discussion List Rules

The Left Hook list is meant to encourage open, critical, and dynamic debate amongst the radical youth Left about the issues we face today. In order to facilitate this discussion in the right direction, we have set several guidelines:

1. It is assumed that everyone on this list is anti-capitalist. Thus, any attempt to label someone else on the list as a �reformist�, a �petty-bourgeois�, etc., is not allowed. While honest and blunt discussion of politics is encouraged, all that name-calling does is distract from the real issues at hand by muddling the atmosphere with labels. If it is in fact the case that someone creeps on to the list who doesn�t belong, the moderators will take care of it.

2. The point of this list is to have a place to discuss ideas and strategy openly, critically, and free from peer pressure to conform to a rigid interpretation of what it means to be a �real� revolutionary. While we will have disagreements, some more serious than others, the assumption of the list is that we are all comrades trying to defeat an unjust system. Disagreements in this struggle at this stage do not make us �opponents� of each other.

3. We want lots of dynamic and innovative discussion on this list. We live in very novel and uncertain times for the Left, and we need to be very critical and engaged in order to confront the problems ahead. Thus, we discourage banal observations and dogmatic formulations (i.e., the crude, mechanical regurgitation of assumed truths). Of course, principles and truisms will need to be reasserted in the course of discussion. While there is no way to enforce this guideline objectively, just keep it in mind.

4. Please keep contributions relevant and to the point, and do not post in excess of four times a day. Everyone on this list is living very busy lives, working, going to school, and engaged in activism. They don�t have time to follow a battle of political ping pong where people go back and forth posting short, repetitive messages trying to convince the other side. It will facilitate discussion if people try to avoid this. The point of this discussion is to obtain political education and clarity on issues, not to try to convince everyone by repeating yourself over and over and over and over... Please save us all the melodrama of any flame wars by taking them off the list.

5. Any attempts to �raid� this list are prohibited. While everyone is welcome to state their organizational affiliations and make announcements about events and publications, this list is not a recruiting ground. If we hear about anyone taking the emails of list members and using them for their own purposes without our permission, we will not only expel you and destroy your reputation on the Left, but we will also come to your home and hit you on the head repeatedly with a plastic yellow hammer.