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

[Carrol Cox]

Gordon Fitch wrote:

> >[SNIP] "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." [TNR]
> [SNIP]
>
> I think it would be good if the bourgeois media were really
> as out of it as the TNR article indicates.  However, I began
> noticing during the War in Vietnam that ruling-class bullshit
> is divided into layers,[SNIP]

> Hence I believe there is a fair chance that the
> article is simply a piece of fraudulence aimed at a certain
> layer of the public, and more sophisticated psywar materials
> are being or will be constructed for the less credulous.

Yes. In fact two layers can be in the same piece. In this you
have the simple-minded lies about the protesters -- but you
also have a more sophisticated lie about the past, the reference
to "mainstream" labor and civil-rights organizations.

During the Vietnam War one important layer consisted of those
called "Doves": those whose rhetoric was that while U.S. aims
in Vietnam were perfectly proper, unfortunately [violins] the
means were in various ways unacceptable. If the movement
against IMF etc. does grow (and especially if it incorporates
the more essential war against the war against crime) the
equivalent of Doves will appear. (Dolan represents merely
an excessively crude dovishness).

Carrol