[lbo-talk] Re:cockburn's "false" take on india

Jim Devine jdevine03 at gmail.com
Wed Aug 10 09:20:42 PDT 2005


I wrote:
> > I think Cockburn's main role is to counterbalance the official US press, led by people like Thomas Friedman.<<

On 8/10/05, Chris Doss wrote:
> An inversion of a distortion is still a distortion.

Right. But who said one should read AC without reading TF? The two viewpoints are complements, not substitutes[*] -- because it takes more than one blind wiseguy to truly understand the elephant. TF has a lot of interesting data, anecdotes, etc. He, like AC, doesn't lie (or at least not usually). It's useful to get some idea of how people in his position -- hobnobbing with the rich & prosperous -- view the world. TF also writes better than most.

The main reason I don't read TF is because his view is already in the air I breathe, appearing between the lines of the L.A. TIMES, U.S. National Public Radio, and most other news sources. Also, I don't subscribe to the NY TIMES. I also don't read AC, except his columns in the NATION, because his work seems to have gone downhill. I find his work these days to be more provocative than revealing.

[*] I should have a rubber stamp made that says "they're not substitutes, they're complements" since I seem to say that all the time. I'm sure I can set up a macro in WinWord for that...

-- Jim Devine "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list