Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece

[Carl Remick <carlremick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> (Thomas Frank's new book "What's Wrong With Kansas" argues implicitly
> that the Democrats lose elections because they are identified with the
> wrong side of the "culture wars". This is the same sort of position that
> Michael Moore argued in the Nation Magazine in 1997 and that Richard
> Rorty put forward in "Achieving Our Country". You get a more strident
> version of this in Todd Gitlin's "The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why
> America Is Wracked by Culture Wars". Moving directly into the enemy's
> camp, you get  Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s "The Disuniting of America:
> Reflections on a Multicultural Society" and Jim Sleeper's "Liberal
> Racism: How Fixating on Race Subverts the American Dream". Somehow, this
> kind of economism that panders to white workers has been associated with
> Marxism in some circles. Frank himself would probably describe himself
> as a Marxist, but not on the Charlie Rose show--I don't imagine. In any
> case, this has little to do with the outlook of Lenin who urged that
> socialists act as a "tribune of the people".)

I think _What the Matter With Kansas?_ is a great book, but Frank doesn't
really provide any explanation for conservatives' amazing, Lamont
Cranston-style ability to "cloud men's minds" and substitute preposterous
cultural issues for economic concerns that have life-and-death significance.
 Why *are* so many Americans so easily gulled, so mulish, so spiteful, so
effing perverse?  I was born in this country and have lived here for over a
half century, but the basic weirdness of this place never fails to astonish
me.

BTW, just heard that Martha Stewart got a sentence (a phrase, really) of
just five months.  Guess she'll be out in time to offer decorating tips for
Christmas.

Carl

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