Doug Henwood wrote: > > Chris Burford wrote: > > >At 13/11/02 14:34 -0500, you wrote: > >[clip] Why are Toni Negri > >>and The Nation magazine such urgent enemies? > >> > >>Doug > > > >Because sectarian traditions of marxism cannot engage with the real > >world, and perhaps prefer not to. > > By the way, the editor of the Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel, is very > antiwar. [clip]
Doug, I _really_ wish you wouldn't equate all those who dislike the Nation, etc. with merely one obsession of yours. It's undignified. As Joanna said, the main objection to the Nation and Negri is that they're so damn dull for the most part. And being "against the war" is something that I expect a whole lot of people to be -- it no more wins brownie points than refraining from rape is a plus for someone. Some things we ought to be able to take for granted. It would sound odd to praise Cox on the grounds that he is a good speller; it's equally odd to praise the editor of what pretends to be the leading left periodical for being (forsooth) against the war. Is she still committed to getting Democrats elected? The _Nation_ used to be rather fun to read, and for many years I looked forward to every week (even though I always had real disagreements with many of its positions). But now it has become a pretty complete bore, and had for a couple of years before I finally let my subscription drop in '98. And of course it's not the enemy. Since when have you been so commited to immediate relevance on maillists. How come you didn't interrupt the thread on sex on the left with such a challenge to deal with the lunatics in the white house before we talked about anything else. Does it make a leftist an enemy if he/she doesn't go all out for variety in sex? Carrol
