And is there an Anti-Economist somewhere that debunks the outrageous spin, cherry picking, strawman constructing, and smug attitude dismissive of alternative points of view that characterize this small but highly influential rag that spreads the propaganda of neoliberalism throughout the liberal intelligentsia?
Many of the most influential people "liberal" people I know brag about keeping up by reading The Economist, even if they'd never follow its voting recommendations. And from people like that, neoliberal dogma propagates into the minds and corridors of power. I worry that its influence far exceeds its base.
But what could I recommend as an alternative?
Of course, there was the once great (and now lamented?) Wall Street Journal, where you could get all the facts that fit (except on the editorial page, which has always been Fox News). But even when I could recommend WSJ, who can keep up with it all? I can hardly keep up with The Nation.
What's needed is a weekly (or monthly, even) with an international perspective, and which covers the world or thereabouts in every issue (or web update). The International Socialist Review has a good range, but it also rates fairly high on spin-to-fact ratio, if in another direction. And, though I subscribe to ISR myself, I could hardly recommend it to my liberal friends. I continue looking for something better and more universal. As it is, I feel like my reading ISR and filtering out the spin is much like my liberal friends reading The Economist and claiming to do the same.
At the USSF in June, Yes! magazine had a seminar on positive trends (greater democracy, opposing neoliberalism) in Latin America and I picked up a couple of copies. I like it, but honestly I worry it's a bit too uncritical (though it does bring needed perspective to a US audience who is used to blanket denunciations of Cuba, Chavez, etc.)
Even if we on the left are nowhere near being able to organize the masses, the least we could do would be to present a clear and evolving picture of what's actually going on in the whole world, and constantly challenge the Washington Consensus, especially here in Washington's homeland, where The Economist may have its largest influence.
Charles Peterson San Antonio, Texas
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