This is the reason I don't want to kowtow to the exhortation that we must always repeat, "A pox on both houses!" This mantra does nothing but filibuster.
>The range of ideological debate in this country is extremely narrow;
>anything "radical" is by definition off limits. Members of the
>media–and of academe–exercise rigorous self-censorship, lest they be
>accused of harboring subversive ideas. Thus it is permissible to oppose
>aid to the contras in Nicaragua, but not to speak or write favorable
>about the Sandinista government there. Similarly, although many
>journalists and professors eventually opposed the war in Vietnam, it was
>never on the assumption that the National Liberation Front might
>actually have wanted to construct a free and just society in that
>country.
The furthest you can go in respectable circles is to posit moral equivalence between American imperialism and America's official enemies (and even that is not always safe). That is why even Noam Chomsky, who is no fan of Bolshevism (to say nothing of Stalinism), seldom ever gets in the mass media, for he has consistently refused to accept the parameters of liberal anticommunism. Chomsky's main target has always been American imperialism, and that is not acceptable. Never mind Michael Parenti! That's beyond the pale in American political culture.
Yoshie