[Marxism] When liberals lie down with wolves

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

WHEN LIBERALS LIE DOWN WITH WOLVES
http://www.artsjournal.com/herman/

So I was reading Eric Alterman's blog item "Wolfowitz on the record,"
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7127721/#050308) about a cocktail party Tina
Brown threw in Washington the other night, and I kept getting the creepiest
feeling. The author of "What Liberal Media?" had just outdone himself,
proving once and for all there really is no such thing as the liberal
media. Alterman did this by fawning all over Wolfowitz with the peculiar
awe of an autograph hound, disguised as, "I felt bad for the guy when I saw
him standing by himself." And then he compounded my disbelief by painting a
portrait of Wolfowitz as a misunderstood Worthy Wiseman.

Confused by Alterman's longing for Wolfowitz's approval -- at one point he
suggests that Wolfowitz is the "perfect choice" to negotiate a peace
settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians and writes, seemingly
in jest, "Somebody please run with this idea so I can go down in history as
having lit the spark that solved the Palestinian problem" -- I asked my
truly left-wing friend William Osborne to have a look at Alterman's item.
This was his response, which pinpoints what's wrong as I could not:

"The ironic subtext is that Alterman is very proud of himself for being
invited to such an elite party. As Chomsky has noted, a principal function
of elite universities is socialization in elitism itself. The status to get
to these parties is what people like Alterman live for. All the talk of
Harvard, Yale and the University of Chicago combined with such a deluded
political atmosphere gives a sense of Washington's phony grandeur. There is
something about Wolfowitz that is so tacky it would put off people even in
my little hometown in New Mexico. Our country is slowly assuming the odd
character of a nouveau-riche Raj in the early stages of a hokey empire.
Alterman and the politicos pose with cocktails, so enamored of themselves,
and yet the backdrop is so odd: a city with unbelievably massive ghettos,
no decent mass transit system, depredation and poverty everywhere outside
its grand monuments to power. The list of domestic short comings goes on
and on, but never mind, we have our cloddish social Darwinist neo-cons and
Doonesbury liberals delighted at being invited to the posh parties of the
powerful. Conquering countries is so much more fun than building subways or
creating decent high schools. One could sit in a corner at the party and
see that history never changes. The march of folly will eventually
collapse, rotted within."

--

www.marxmail.org


_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism