"The white left in New York is moribund"

[James Farmelant]

--------- Begin forwarded message ----------
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com>
To: marxism at lists.panix.com
Subject: Re: "The white left in New York is moribund" 
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 16:08:59 -0500
Message-ID: <3.0.1.32.19990212160859.00a2cbe0 at popserver.panix.com>

[Go ahead and crosspost this to LBO, Jim. See what they're missing...]

Salon magazine:
>The absence of white protesters was noteworthy, and yet predictable. The
>white left in New York is moribund. Aging Upper East Side intellectuals
>and Vietnam War protesters never show up at protests in this town
>anymore, and probably never will again. The political landscape of New
>York has changed entirely. The white intelligentsia isn't angry about
>anything and has little or nothing to offer the political debate. Their
>dirty little not-so-secret is that they benefit from Giuliani's
>repressive policies.

I find this more interesting as a sign of Salon's drift to the right than
anything else. What makes me laugh is the notion of "Upper East Side"
intellectuals. I have never heard of such a thing before in my life. The
Upper East Side, my neighborhood, is filled with lawyers, stock brokers
and
real estate developers. The only 2 intellectuals who live there are me
and
Henry Liu. I think the reporter meant Upper West Side, where Doug lives,
and which used to be called the Upper Left Side, but even the west side
is
just a pale imitation of the east side nowadays, as is the Village east
and
west.

I have been following the coverage of the protests quite carefully and it
is wrong to paint it as discontinuous with the American black movement.
Sharpton has been prominent in all the protests. At the first massive
street rally in front of Diallo's building, the white attorney who was
representing the dead man, was booed off the stage by the mostly African
attendees. This was the report in the generally reliable NY Times.

It is too soon to tell where this protest is going. Ideally it would mesh
with the Mumia protests which are gathering enormous steam and which the
"white left", including all the aging Upper West Siders, plays a
prominent
role. There is a big rally this weekend at CCNY, which has backing from a
wide range of left and Afro-American groups. The best thing would be for
Diallo's parents, Sharpton and Johnny Cochrane, who they've just hired,
and
all the people involved with achieving justice, to attend the rally and
present remarks. This orientation is obviously not going to be found in
the
somewhat rancid Salon magazine, which is a nice read, even though they
are
lily-white except for their dubious new hire, reported on in the latest
Village Voice Press Clips column:

Village Voice (www.villagevoice.com)
It's been less than a month since Salon editor David Talbot gave Debra
Dickerson the job of National Correspondent, but the appointment has
already rankled some readers. Why? Dickerson's debut, an essay defending
the Gulf War as an exercise in "killing as many Iraqis as efficiently as
possible," struck many as uninformed and insensitive. 

Salon readers responded with a volley of letters to the editor. One
corrected Dickerson's suggestion that Iraq provoked the Gulf War by
"shooting at America" and noted that her essay is "a good reminder that
just because something is contrarian doesn't mean it's thoughtful."
Another
denounced Dickerson as a "self-centered, inhuman vampire." 

Meanwhile, Salon watchers in the media are wondering if Talbot considers
Dickerson his replacement for Jonathan Broder, the veteran journalist
whom
Talbot fired last fall, after Broder publicly criticized Salon's Henry
Hyde
adultery exposé. Talbot's critics fear that rather than seeking a
qualified
news reporter for the D.C. office, he picked up a contrarian pundit just
to
generate buzz. 

"I think it's the most cynical thing David Talbot has done," says one
critic, who adds that the last thing Salon needs is an- other screed
writer. 

Dickerson, an African American in her late thirties, has lots of attitude
but no training in journalism. A St. Louis native, she joined the air
force
in 1980, attended Harvard Law School 12 years later, and then moved to
D.C.
with an agenda. As she wrote in The New Republic in 1996, "I'm a
well-educated, well-paid . . . transplant who came in pursuit of a cool
job
and a place in the power elite." 

Her first job out of law school was with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund,
but
in the tradition of the disaffected young lawyer, Dickerson began
contributing essays and reviews to the likes of The Nation, the Voice,
and
The Washington Post. Her big break came in 1997, when former U.S. News &
World Report editor James Fallows hired her as a senior editor, as part
of
his crusade for diversity. She filed cover stories and essays, but was
not
assigned to a particular beat. 

Last summer, after Fallows was fired, Dickerson stayed busy, working on a
memoir to be published by Little, Brown. In January, she was awarded a
$50,000 senior fellowship by the New America Foundation, a think tank
devoted to promoting liberal intellectuals. (James Fallows is a board
member; David Talbot's sister, Margaret Talbot, formerly of The New
Republic, was also named senior fellow. The fellowships were announced-
where else?- in Salon.) 

Talbot's critics feel that he needs to redeem the magazine's political
reportage, which has been so biased in favor of the White House that
Broder
felt it hurt his ability to do his job. (See, for example, Salon's
January
28 profile of Sidney Blumenthal, which made the sweeping claim that
"admirers and enemies alike agree that . . . Blumenthal is brilliant."
Did
anyone ask Christopher Hitchens?) 

"I had no idea that Salon's hires were under such intense scrutiny,"
Talbot
jokes. "In the future, I'll have to float candidates' names in the New
York
Post." He says Dickerson's column, which does not kick in officially
until
she finishes her book, will be "reporting-driven. This is part of our
renewed commitment to break news and not just comment on it." Talbot
plans
to add several reporters in the next year, and to hire a Washington beat
reporter by next month. 

 






Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)

--------- End forwarded message ----------

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