> how, i might add, can a very assertively professed
> Marxist settle for 'oh it's
> only popular culture, not important'
> i have never understood that at all
Catherine, I invite you to go and read those "insightful" criticisms that Yoshie made of "Empire". She says that she doesn't want to retype them...I dont blame her. She should be embarassed by them and want them to remain dusty and hidden in some vault.
Nonetheless, Yoshie does betray in the above statement what really angers her and Carol about "Empire": It's wide readership...it's popularity, the fact that it was a best-seller. A lot of people read it and thought it had some good new ideas. There are honest and valid criticisms that can be raised against "Empire", but the quality of the criticism doesnt matter to the Carol or Yoshie. The important thing is they are jealous of the book and want to smear it. They must be baffled and frustrated that people aren't rushing out instead to buy titles like, "Long Live Kim Il Sung" or "Leninist Party Building Among Parking Lot Attendants in Welch, West Virginia".
Having read Yoshie's comments on the book before, it's hard for me to imagine that she read Empire at all. I am more inclined to think that she thumbed the book looking for a few quotes that she could jerk out of context and counter them with some tired cliches from the 1930s.
-Thomas
===== "Nothing is true, everything is permitted."
"Money eats quality and shits out quantity" -William Burroughs
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