Noam Chomsky has been my guide since I was able to think about foreign policy. I don't agree with everything he says and I agree even less with his ham-handed manner, in late years, of saying it, but there's no one in the Englsih-speaking world, or probably the whole world, who has his command of the facts and insight into the way the world works, His theory is vulgar Marxism, but that explains about 85% of the variance if deployed with the sort of ruthless consistency that Chomsky deplies it. If that leads to conclusions that are not "balanced" or "nuanced," well, as Che Guevera used to say, "It's not MY fault the world is Marxist!" (And since Chomsky isn't a Marxist, you can't accuse him of dogmatically deriving his conclusions from the sacred texts. He just reads them off the National Security Counsel documents, where Marxist premisesare writ in letters of fire.)
Cockburn and Vidal are not in the same league, and don't pretend to be. Cockburn is emigre journalist and Vidal a belles-lettrist eccentric. Both are great reads. Neither are in the business of providing balance. They provide sparkle and stimulation, which is more than you can say about ALterman.
But excluding Chomsky's
> (considerable) authority on
> college campuses and Vidal's among the global
> glitterati, their influence is
> negligible.
Well, that's certainly a criterion for deciding to whom we should pay attention. Sorry, Sr. Galileo, your influence is negligible.
> Nowhere in any of the above attacks, for instance,
> could I locate an
> engagement with the work of liberal writers or
> politicians of genuine merit
> and reputation. Not a single reference, in other
> words, to names like:
> Rorty, Walzer, Wills, Kuttner, Meyerson, Hertzberg,
> Rich, Krugman, Reich,
> Gitlin, Berman, Ivins, Green, Hoffmann, Gates,
> Kennedy (Edward, Randy, David
> and Paul), West, Judis, Kazin, Brinkley, Tomasky,
> Jackson, FitzGerald,
> Didion, Dyson, Power, Moyers, Frank, Pelosi,
> Feingold, McGovern (Jim and
> George), Wilentz, Fallows, McGrory, Navasky, vanden
> Heuvel, Kinsley, Scheer,
> Conason, Packer, Cohen, etc.
>
> This is the patriotic left that Hitchens would have
> had to engage
This kind of bullshit is sort of thing that makes me ashahmed to call myself a patriot, which I do despite the Alterman. And why Sheer, who is far more rabidly anti-American than Chomsky et al. As for some of the other lowlifes he lists -- Michael Kinsley! --ugh. Most of them are pretty good. Better than him, anyway. Yucko.
Chomsky
> and Vidal are clearly
> engaged in a different sort of project from that of
> liberals as well.
Oh, he noticed.
Across that abyss lies not George Orwell
> or Sidney Hook
Choke. It's exactly the measure of the Alterman that he can write these two names in the same breath. What a moron.
but
> David Horowitz and Roy Cohn.
Or even these names. Horowitz is a harmless if irritating fool. Roy Cohn was actually dangerous and destructive. I am sure that Horowitz would like to have been able to be as destructive as Roy Cohn, but the times haven't permitted. Thank god.
jks
>
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