>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 02/10/00 11:19AM >>
Let me be a provincial American for a minute and talk about Buchanan.
He's entirely a creature of the Establishment - Nixon's White House,
syndicated column, CNN star. But that Establishment regards him as a
pariah - a useful pariah. He's their official bad boy. Mainstream
media and politicians legitimate him by their attention, but treat
his politics as illegitimate. It's part of a process by which the
ruling class gets to designate its opponents. Not only Buchanan -
recall how Perot became the official opponent of NAFTA. Having
foreclosed any serious left option, right demagoguery is chosen as
the acceptable way for the masses to let off steam. Or, to take a
more offbeat example, there was a point a year or two ago when the
Swedish media and political class had designated Bob "Cockroach"
Malecki <http://home.bip.net/malecki/> as a semi-official
spokesperson for the unemployed. If I were trying to discredit the
unemployed movement, I'd name Bob Malecki as its publicist, wouldn't
you?
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CB: This sort of sounds like a conspiracy theory of the ruling class' conduct.
CB