Carrol Cox wrote: >All that said, it remains one of my half dozen favorite pieces of English >prose -- but I would not recommend it as a model of agitational style. No, probably not. But the aesthetic, if you can call it that, of writing on the American left these days is just deadly, and part of the reason for that is a pervasive fear of giving offense. Wit, which has a lot to do with aggression, is barely evident. No one but the already converted would willingly pick up a copy of Ms. magazine or the liberal weeklies, and it's often a sense of duty that gets the already-converted reader through an issue. If ever there was a target deserving sharp satire and polemic, it's the smug, brutal, and philistine U.S. ruling class of 1999, but they're not getting what they deserve. Doug
