Doug, your problem is that you seem unconstitutionally incapable of taking a position. This is the difference between you and Marxist revolutionaries like Ernest Mandel. Everything that Mark Jones and I write represents advocacy of one sort or another. That is how socialism will come about, as the force of our arguments persuade growing numbers of people.
While you are tremendous asset to the radical movement, I don't think that you will ever be able to make the shift and it is probably just as well that you continue to provide the kind of services you are providing now.
The problem with your interview with Hugh Patrick and many of your interviews is that you seem to style yourself after McNeill-Lehrer. I suppose this is "objective" journalism, but when you don't challenge Hugh Patrick, it is nearly impossible to figure out where you stand. Of course, the problem is that you don't want to take a stand so the point is moot.
Last night, you interviewed James Galbraith, who represents the most banal sort of left-liberal policy-wonkism. Like his father, he seems to think that progress comes about when the ruling class decides to stop acting in a foolish and self-destructive manner and begins listening to enlightened voices. It is the Plato's Republic model. And completely ridiculous.
Galbraith was urging some sort of enlightened Western European social-democratic model on the US, but he is absolutely clueless how these regimes came into existence. It was not because the bourgeoisie is more "civilized," it is because there are militant, class-conscious socialist movements that often resorted to revolutionary violence. For example, the first Swedish social democratic government came to power after the general strike in 1931, which grew out of a bloody miners strike in the town of Adalen.
I would have challenged Galbraith, but you simply played Robert McNeill: "So what do you say to those who argue that a decent wage would be inflationary." Give me a break.
One last thing on this knucklehead Galbraith. When I was working with the Trotskyists in the Harvard Student Mobilization Committee in 1971, Jamie Galbraith nearly co-opted the committee into supporting Democratic Party "peace candidates". I debated him at a meeting of over 100 students and helped to keep the SMC independent. My impression of Galbraith was that he was just another opportunist who was using the cachet of the peace movement to advance his career. Just like Bill Clinton, in other words.
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)