the phrase that sticks out is "production of influential writing." what could be less influential at this point than writing for mags like the nation, the progressive, in these times, or mother jones, small-circ publications whose reader base consists largely of the very people most predisposed to agree with writers on the left? i should add--and pardon my primitivism--that i think any worthy measure of "influence" should include the effort to speak to those who are not already part of the choir.
which brings us to the cockburn set-to. i like alex cockburn because he's funny, lively, unafraid to piss on left orthodoxies, and, most important, because he gets out and travels around the country regularly, and talks with a lot of the people who are mere rumors to most writers in the left press. and thus, i think, he shares a sense of the public mood that i arrived at through eight years as an editor in the alternative press (and a native of midwestern militia country)--which is that these working class elements who are regularly derided in the left press are actually much less dyed-in-the-wool reactionary and much more confused than anyone realizes. what they share is a sense of betrayal, of being bypassed, but their views about the situation are largely inchoate and up for grabs. the left press attends to labor issues, yes; but do you realize what a small proportion of the US working class--by any sensible definition thereof--is part of organized labor now?
one thing, though--this whole cockburn/pollitt/henwood row of the past few days has been a welcome respite from the logorrhea of the lacan openers.