[lbo-talk] The Nation and brain death

Jesse Lemisch jesse.lemisch at verizon.net
Sun Feb 21 13:27:56 PST 2010


Doug is completely right. The Nation has succeeded in finding a black woman who sounds just like Katha Pollitt and Todd Gitlin, continuing to lead people down the bad road of Obamaism.

And the Nation 's back of the book has long been inferior to the the b-o-b of the otherwise hideous New Republic.

Jesse

----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Sunday, February 21, 2010 4:06 PM Subject: [lbo-talk] The Nation and brain death


>
> On Feb 21, 2010, at 3:56 PM, SA wrote:
>
>> Actually, the thrust of my argument is addressed precisely to those on
>> the left in a position analogous to NR's position on the right - e.g.,
>> most obviously, the people who run the Nation. The whole purpose of a
>> magazine like that should be to explain to people why - for example -
>> corporate personhood is a red herring, even as it encourages people to
>> go out and raise hell. Instead, the Nation does the opposite. It
>> passively genuflects to every brain-dead trope on the left while
>> passionately excluding any denunciation of Obama.
>
> The Nation isn't at all interested in ideas - the opposite of NR back in
> the day. (NR today is risible, but that's another story.) So it turns out
> that one of the reasons that Katrina gave MHL a column is that she
> allegedly speaks to an audience far broader than The Nation's usual
> readership. The magazine shouldn't be some sort of massification device -
> it should be a thing where people think seriously. Instead, the editor is
> dumbing the thing down. It's doing more than passively genuflecting to
> brain-dead tropes - it's actively disseminating them.
>
> Doug
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>



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