[lbo-talk] left aiding right

c b cb31450 at gmail.com
Mon Sep 14 09:06:38 PDT 2009


Doug Henwood

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How the angry liberals reinforce the role of the right as agenda- setters: http://doughenwood.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/agenda-setting/

I’ve complained before about all the attention that the angry liberals—Air America, Keith Olbermann, The Huffington Posties, etc.—are paying to the nutters on the right, and I’m going to do it again.

^^^^^ CB: It's the anti-Obama ultra-lefts who are aiding and converging with the ultr-right

Kudos to Olbermann and Huffington Posties for taking up the struggle at the critical moment.

^^^^^

Not only does this obsession absolve them of developing and selling an agenda, and put them in the position of being mouthpieces for a centrist, business-friendly administration—it reinforces the role of Glenn Beck as an agenda-setter. Just as Olbermann can’t let go of Cheney, Obama’s clearly still in the discursive grip of Reagan.

^^^^^^^ CB: "Clearly" the notion that Obama is in the discursive grip of Reagan is nonsense.

^^^^^

I’m no fan of economic crises as offering opportunities for political transformation—they could as easily, maybe more easily, break to the right as to the left, and they cause lots of suffering—but I had hoped that the near-meltdown of the financial system might lead to new ways of seeing, thinking, talking. Not yet.

^^^^^ CB: Somebody' should get back to the discursive grip of analyzing and criticizing the Wall Street bankruptcy, and stop diverting attention from that historic event for US finance.



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