Tom Frank article in Salon

[Jeff Downing]

Although she doesn't fail to provide an accurate summation of "One Market
Under God," Michelle Goldberg
ends up wasting a lot of pixels by reverting to the critique used by
numerous sympathetic reviewers whenever
a thinker they admire fails to dip his nib into the oracular inkwell and
offer us a 12-step plan to make it all
better.  This sort of undue burden was often hoisted onto Chomsky's
shoulders (invariably by lefties, since
noone else would touch him, at least in the U.S.), critiques based on what
he omitted from his books and
lectures.  I doubt that Goldberg believes a diagnosis is invalid without a
prescription, but this repeated call
for mantic socio-economic exit strategies--not to mention the media's
continued harping on our inability
to (in Dubya's vernacular) "speak with one voi-ssss"--is ultimately
distracting.  Moreover, if it's so durn
important, why didn't she call Tom up and ask him herself?

http://salon.com/books/feature/2000/10/26/frank/index.html

It brought to mind the conversation I had with a young woman during the A16
demonstration, at the corner
of 17th and Pennsylvania (if I'm remembering correctly).  I wore my Baffler
ballcap for most of the weekend--less
as a fashion statement than a way to fend off the sun and rain--and received
nary a comment from the teeming
masses until this woman noticed it.  She looked at it, nodded, and tugged
her vinegar-soaked rag beneath her
mouth.
"The Baffler, huh?  Pretty cynical."
"Why would you say that?" I asked.
"All that commodify your dissent stuff, it's just so negative.  So
unconstructive."
"How'd you change it?"
She shrugged and said, "More optimism," before heading back toward the
police line.

Jeff