>From: Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: ideologues (Re: Sociology and Explanations (Re:
>Hitchensresponds to critics
>Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 13:15:03 -0400
>Jacob, I did not say that every lelftier tried to exonerate terrorists,
>many did not - they just use it as an opporunity to propell their agenda.
>Again that was in a very poor taste - like a political harrangue at a
>funeral. Francis Wheen reports in a recently published biography of Karl
>Marx that learning about the death of Engels's girlfriend, the Old Man
>started harranguing his life-long friend about his own financial problems.
> That almost ended their friendship. I think that such poor tast and lack
>of tactfulness is quite prominent on the left.
Hmmm. So far you've compared critiques of US foreign policy to Nazi propaganda and reminders of US funding of fundamentalists to selfish harrangues. As a leftist sitting in Manhattan, I'm not sure why reminding the US of how it stoked the fires of fundamentalism amounts to selfishness.
>I found the media response to 9-11 quite palapable: not overy
>sensationalists, appealing for reason and restraint. Sure it was heavy on
>patriotism, flag waving, and religion, but these are normal human
>expressions of solodarity in times of struggle, uncertainty and disaster.
OK, where are you living, bc from the minute the event happened, I heard anchors saying "Does our military budget need to be larger?" and "Should the CIA have a freer hand?" Before anyone knew anything, they attributed teh attack to Osama, Afghanis and sometimes just South Asians (SAJA has documented several cases of the terrorists being called Indian).
Further more, pace your comment in another post that only leftists seized the moment, Republicans immediately seized this opportunity to pursue *their* grievances, wrt to civil liberties and CIA policy, viz. Carnivore and suspension habeas corpus for immigrants.
>If the point-headed lefties could not comprehend that basic fact, it is a
>sad commentary on how alienated they are from the concerns of common
>people.
Which common people? I was in Brooklyn on 9/11, in Prospect Park, which is a largely black/West Indian/immigrant community. I was *amazed* to hear people, including people whose politics is otherwise very middle-of-the-road, people who would never vote for Ralph Nader, say, "Now the US knows how the rest of the world feels."
The only Congressperson to say no to Bush's appropriations was from Oakland, and her constituency was not pointy-headed lefties.
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