"Meet the New New Left: bold, fun, and stupid, " in TNR

[rc-am]

Michael wrote:

>    Well, if the Washington Post, apparently, is leaning towards "sympathy",
> for the protests, the New Republic, is fulfilling it's usual role of
> policing the parameters of acceptable discourse, all in it's trademark,
> smirky style.

I particularly liked these paragraph from the article.

"Nobody at last week's protests better encapsulated the left's evolution than
Dave Solnit. Dressed like a French mime in a green-and-white striped t-shirt,
Solnit was spray-painting cloth banners in a Washington alley when I met him.
Like many of the posters at the demonstration, his didn't completely make
sense. Underneath an image of corn, he stenciled resist. A picture of a cat
got the slogan RISE UP!"

Heh. It seems they're policing the acceptable parameters of discourse by
inducing the writer to feign complete ignorance, in the hope that it catches
on.   If it didn't make sense to the journo, well, I guess then it didn't
make sense to anyone.

"The problem is that mainstream anarchists--in order to avoid sectarian
conflict, and as a result of their laissez-faire, decentralized spirit--won't
condemn the violence of their bandanna-wearing fellows. They might agree that
violence is a problem tactically, but they're too steeped in relativism to
condemn fellow protesters and too ignorant of ideology to construct a moral
case for nonviolence. In short, they're unable to do what the mainstream
labor and civil rights movements did: disavow people who share their enemies
but compromise their moral integrity."

That one, I didn't laugh.

Angela
_________