[PEN-L:32872] Re: Bosnia Generation Imperialist speak up in the NY Times

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

> The Idealist
> Paul Berman's book ''A Tale of Two Utopias: The Political Journey of the
> Generation of 1968'' traced a line from the rebellions of the 1960's to the
> nonviolent revolutions of 1989. It is essentially a line from leftism to
> liberalism. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the great ideological battles
> of the 20th century seemed to have ended: liberal democracy reigned supreme.
> Then came Sept. 11, which, Berman argues in a coming book called ''Terror
> and Liberalism,'' showed that, as it turns out, the 20th century isn't quite
> over yet.

This is the biggest turd alive. During the 1980s, he wrote article after
article in the Village Voice demonizing the FSLN in Nicaragua. Here's what
I wrote on the NY Times forum for this article:

Packer's article really obfuscates the relationship between liberals and US
imperialist interventions. Except for Vietnam, liberals always support such
wars. At the beginning of the Vietnam war, the late Michael Harrington
(Packer's ideological patron) supported LBJ. It was only after student
protests grew massive that many of these liberal hawks turned around. I
would also argue that the breach opened up between genuine pacifism and
liberal warmongering not over Bosnia but years earlier in Nicaragua, when
people like Paul Berman demonized the Sandinista government. His lies
helped to prop up the contra war.



Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org