abortion, activism & pomophobia (was: Activism and Avoidance)

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Wed Feb 10 08:10:18 PST 1999


ripley wrote [quoting Ken]:


>>I now realize that I was
>>mistaken in expecting to meet kindred souls on LBO-talk, and that much,
>>perhaps most, of the dialogue here is explicitly or implicitly a cynical
>>assault on those who seek to organize actions in solidarity with the
>>oppressed, or avoidance of that responsibility through academic diversions.
>
>please don't be silly here. Remick and some others were assaulting all us
>supposed Butler Bootlickers for being failed activists. i think there are
>plenty of kindred spirits here re activism. i'm certainly one.

I keep coming back to that passage in Eric Alterman's dumb pomobashing column in The Nation from several months ago, in which he attacked the theoryheads in all the familiar ways, and then wrote:


> "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.

This undermined Alterman's whole point, but neither he nor his editors seemed to notice.

Doug



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list