[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Street / Campaign and Debate Reflections / Oct 17

[Morton K.Brussel]

I would only comment, Carl, that Street from my readings of his blogs 
and articles, is not a hate consumed antiNaderite, that he voted for 
Nader last time, that he gives Nader his due, but that he sees Nader 
now as completely self-consumed, illogical, and counterproductive to 
common goals. Exasperating!  As for Cockburn/St. Clair, both have been 
valuable critics and muckrakers, but too often illogically extreme 
[viz.: "… These days the left and PC crowd would find that the woman 
was opposed to affirmative action, or some such, and would have driven 
her out with oaths  and curses."], thus counterproductive at the 
present time especially in their fanatical denigration of Kerry 
relative to Bush.

I prefer your mentor's more balanced conclusions. Is he selling out, as 
Cockburn asserts?

Mort

On Oct 18, 2004, at 11:13 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> [A generally good commentary, I think, Mort -- it starts strong, and 
> it's
> certainly correct that the differences between the Bonesmen, such as 
> they
> are, lie in domestic, not foreign policy.  But the paragraph I've
> excerpted below could come from those Alexander Cockburn describes as 
> "The
> older crowd [who] hate Bush ... but they hate Nader more." Attributing 
> a
> "racial problem" to Nader (quoting a "leftist" who says "gonna" and
> "ain't" -- undoubtedly a sign that s/he's down with the people), which 
> the
> liberal Kerry is supposedly free of, is simply McCarthyism.  --CGE]
>
> Alex Cockburn, writing of the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, 40 
> years
> ago:
>
> ...Flowers of the sixties, now gone sadly to seed, have been coursing
> round the nation's courthouses, challenging Nader's efforts to get on
> state ballots. The older crowd hate Bush, that's for sure. But they 
> hate
> Nader more. So here was the great irony. Most of those mistily honoring
> the FSM don't much care for free speech when it looks as though it 
> might
> be risky, might inconvenience their favored candidate, even though the
> favored candidate, John Kerry, wants to fight a better war than Bush in
> Iraq and then march on to Teheran.
>
> In fact the original FSM movement was a much bigger tent than people 
> now
> recall. My old friend Conn Hallinan, who was an FSM militant and 
> arrested
> in Sproul Hall in the largest mass university arrests (800) in the 
> history
> of the US, has just reminded me of this. Hallinan says, "We had right
> wingers, libertarians, conservatives and of course weirdos. There was 
> an
> FSM activist, who went on to successfully challenge the law forbidding
> women to hang off the side of cable cars in San Francisco. She was a
> right-wing libertarian."
>
> These days the left and PC crowd would find that the woman was opposed 
> to
> affirmative action, or some such, and would have driven her out with 
> oaths
> and curses. They have no idea of tactical coalitions. So much for the
> heritage of Sixties radicalism. Not everyone's gone to seed, to be 
> sure.
> There's Lenni, who finally got me off the chair and actually there are
> many, many more who understand the importance of the third word that 
> comes
> after Free Speech, namely "Movement". Without a movement you have 
> nothing,
> and you've built nothing. That's what the ABB "leftists" don't 
> understand
> now. November 3 will be a bit late in the day to start looking for one.
>
> It's the long-term movements that count, the ones that don't sell out
> every four years, to support someone like Kerry who wants to widen the 
> war
> in Iraq and then go and burn down Teheran. These days many communities
> campuses have pro Palestinian groups on them. There were almost none
> thirty years ago. That's a real Free Speech Movement, and one that has
> made a difference and will make a difference long after this campaign 
> is
> over.
>
>
> On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, Morton K.Brussel wrote:
>
>> We're all by now weary of long commentaries repeating common themes,
>> but I particularly admired this one by the clear headed, passionate 
>> and
>> compassionate Paul Street. It appears on ZNET, which can use your
>> support (http://www.zmag.org) as a subscriber.
>> MKB
>>> ...
>>> And the notion of some people on the left not caring if he returns is
>>> beneath contempt. I recently read one my fellow radicals saying that
>>> "things will be bad under Kerry and things will be bad under Bush."
>>> Ho-hum.  Oh well. Whatever.  I know what the radical means, of 
>>> course:
>>> capitalism sucks but take that message to the black community and see
>>> what kind of response you get, comrade.   An African-American leftist
>>> recently wrote me to mention the "calllous indifference" of some of
>>> "the Nader crowd"  to "a significant constituency that they hope to
>>> appeal to:" Blacks.  This cold disregard, this leftist feels,
>>> "denote[s] a racial problem that these people are gonna have to deal
>>> with at some point. Non-leftist black, brown, asian, etc. folk ain't
>>> impressed with such disregard."  Good point...
>>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.cu.groogroo.com
> http://lists.cu.groogroo.com/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
>