Well I should read the next digest too (looks like more than on this thread!) before I jump back in again but, 'cuz its Nathan and Max who I always read (not that I don't each and every word of every lbo'er of course...btw who is this Doug? , Doug Deadwood you say... wrote a book called Fall Street, oh you say his name is Henwood..oh and the book is called Wall Street...say I've never bought even a share of stock, think he has a lead on a hot new IPO?
But seriously, (how was that for an opening, think Josh Kornbluth has some competition? Nah!~`@^*Nah!-- Oh well... ......................................................................
Now on to Nathan and Max. I shoulda, prefaced my kudos to Wieseltier and TNR for the Leon piece thusly. Leon, being the neo-con lit critter he is and who employs him, the Neo-Con Maximus (say rank Marty Peretz, second only to Irving Kristol in that mafia) Pontificus, Martin Peretz. Whatever the residual, ever so slightly social democratic economic policies TNR will still editorialize for, and the social liberalism too, the primary function of TNR is to police the parameters of acceptable, mainstream political discourse in the policy wonkist and academic worlds. Instead of the 30's Popular Front credo , "No Enemies to the Left, " to TNR its , "All Enemies to the Left!" So, I take it as given that the piece on West back in '95 was gonna be a political hit piece. What I did like about Wieseltier's piece, was (sigh...) that the mofo can write. West is a windbag. What did I see him saying in the new "Cornel West Reader" New Press, in the preface. Oh ya he's a Kiekegaardian, Chekhovian Marxist. I'll take that "leap of faith" some other time, Cornel. As for contemporay academic Black lefties who I always read with benefit are the aforementioned Reed, Manning Marable, Michael Eric Dyson, Gerald Horne (check out book on Watts 1965, look mighty fine ), William Julius Wilson, Martin Kilson.
Final little recommendation: a book by Boston Globe reporter, Jonathan K aufman, on the troubled status of Black and Jewish relations since the mid sixties entitled, I think, "Broken Alliance, " has a chapter on Marty Peretz which is revealing about why he and his confreres are so sour and bitter.
Michael Pugliese, from Comsymp to Neo-Consymp, jeez, guess I'll be calling The New Republic for a job, I hear the need a replacement for that fabricator Stephen Glass. Hear he's in law school now.