>Eric Alterman's banal reflections (May 25) on divisions in the left are
>confused as well[....]
>
and
>
>The Alterman piece is just one more example of how the Right-wing view of
>history has come to shape the 'left' thinking: it is blacks, women,
>homosexuals, etc. and their critiques and activism that have divided the
>allegedly once unified Left. It's a politics of white ressentiment that
>seeks to pass itself off as the true voice of the working class
>
Hmmm...
You all seemed to read a different Alterman piece than I did...
I read denunciations of the cultural left:
"a 'spectorial, disgusted, mocking left' that believes
the higher is its level of abstraction, the more subversive
it is.... [T]his left lacks even the most rudimentary
strategy for translating theory into practice..."
coupled with denunciations of the reformist left as:
"extremely eloquent in elite debates... entirely without
troops when the lecture is over. Its class-based analysis
appeals neither to the racism/sexism/homophobia crowd
nor to the self-images of most Americans."
But what stayed with me were the last three paragraphs:
"But here's the twist. [Reformist Social-Democratic
Leftist Nelson] Lichtenstein is part of a perfectly
Rortyite reformist Campaign for a Living Wage at
the University of Virginia. This campaign is not
about ending sexism, racism, or homophobia, but
about getting janitorial staff a few extra bucks
an hour. Who are its volunteers? Primarily, says
Lichtenstein, faculty and graduate students from
the pomo literature and theory crowd.
"The fledgling labor/scholar alliance is designed
to replicate just such cooperation. The most powerful
speech at the labor/academic conference was given by
Betty Dumas, a Trinidadian immigrant who was jailed
and fired for her attempts to unionize the Avondale
shipyards in New Orleans. Dumas siad the hardest part
of her struggle was trying to explain to her children
why their mother was going to jail, when she had spent
their whole lives drilling them about the importance of
obeying the law.
"A left that cannot find a way to unite behind the
Betty Dumases of this world is no left at all."
Perhaps other people stopped reading at the bottom of the first column?
Brad DeLong