Brad weighs in

Jim Farmelant farmelantj at juno.com
Sun Nov 4 12:09:20 PST 2001


On Sat, 3 Nov 2001 10:55:23 -0600 "Peter K." <peterk at enteract.com> writes:


> I appreciate people's wish to keep the list open and not insular and
> I
> agree, but my one pet peeve is the New Republic. What they have
> published about the Palestinians, Nader, Said, and the
> anti-corporate
> globalization movement, to name a few, is inexcusable.
>
> I'm mean they're for privatizing social security, no? What are the
> New
> Republic's redeeming features?

None whatsoever, as far as I can tell. The only reason that it is worth reading at all, is in order to keep oneself clued to what an important segment of the Establishment is up to. Actually compared to an openly reactionary rag like National Review, it is far more dishonest and disingenuous, since there is still a pretence that it is somehow still a liberal organ.

We shouldn't forget how far to the right Marty Peretz has managed to take The New Republic over the past quarter century. I recall once while at the Boston Public Library, spending a little time flipping through the pages of back issues of The New Republic from the early 1970s. Its politics then was quite different from those of its present incarnation. Back then the magazine strongly supported all the great social movements of that era including the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, the women's movement, the student movement etc. Its political line was far to the left of not only its present incarnation, but also well to the left of the present incarnation of The Nation as well. Hell, back then The New Republic used to publish Noam Chomsky, something completely unimaginable now a days!


>Some of their writers, like John
> Judis?
>
> I bet Aaron Page was not interested in dialogue in the slightest.
> I've met
> a number of New Republic partisans over the years and one thing they
> have
> in common - besides immense ambition - is an overriding hatred of
> the "looney left." (The Nader campaign probably drove a number them
> over the ledge.) So if they hate us for what we stand for (just as
> ObL
> hates the United States) I see no reason to turn the other cheek.
>
> Peter
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list