> >While I never felt the caliber of intellectual or political discussion at
> >Mother Jones to be that high,
Neither is what goes in the magazine.
> >Craddock is correct that the race issue, and the one on spirituality that
> >followed, incensed some members of the board. I can't claim credit for the
> >spirituality issue, though I thought it was well done. It was mandated by
> >Klein (the same guy Craddock claims eschews soul-searching essays for
> >hard-edged political investigations) and brilliantly executed by Marilyn
> >Snell. The criticism of it, repeated by Craddock, that spirituality has
> >nothing to do with progressivism, and had no place in the magazine, is
> >narrow and dumb. The names of Frederick Douglas, Ghandi, Cary Nation,
> >Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Dalai Llama come to mind.
Cary Nation? A progressive? The Dali fucking Lama, a progressive?!? No wondor they didn't see anything wrong with the race issue; these people are what they consider progressives.
In the early 80's, I used to subscribe to MJ. It wasn't great then, but it is surely insipid now. I read the parts of the spirituality issue that they had on the web, it was the same sort of pablum that you get from Time or Newsweek (one of which did a similar cover right around the same time). But the race issue, I actually went and bought and read it cover to cover. That issue was really revolting.
--
Joseph Noonan jfn1 at msc.com