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On Thu, Jul 11, 2019 at 4:38 AM A.R. G via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
> *
> Granted I'm not sure that CTH people (like Amber) are among those who are
> witch-hunting for anti-Semitism but it seems to be a running theme. People
> who complain about "snowflakes" are often the biggest ones.
>
Whatever else you think of them, they definitely don't do that, making
great sport of people like Bari Weiss and Meghan McCain for doing so, and
having guests from the UK Labour left talking about the smears against
Corbyn etc.
In general as I've noted here before if you've listened to the show to some
extent for some time it's obvious they've moved more towards interviews
with left activists and commentators and not coincidently moved away from
puerile irony/edginess. I certainly don't agree with all they say and note
a definite tendency to economism/workerism which seems to be a trend within
DSA.
This economism it seems is a partly understand reaction to, as black
feminist and now Sanders media chief Briahna Gray (and former CTH guest)
put it a couple of years ago, while being a lot more nuanced than the
subjects of this thread, "how identity became a weapon against the left"
wielded by powerful liberals,
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/09/how-identity-became-a-weapon-against-the-left.
Amber seems more economistic than the others, though usually far less
crassly than comes across in this article. The main problem seems to me to
be no differentiation between rich and powerful hardened liberals like
Clintons and Pelosi who *are* exactly like these "dingbats" say, and
millions of ordinary people with mixed consciousness. Perhaps they were
misrepresented to some extent though if so you've got to wonder what they
expected.
Anyway I find CTH entertaining and one interesting take on politics and
culture in the US (and elsewhere: e.g. I've never heard the reclusive and
eccentric graphic novel genius Alan Moore speak until his recent interview
on the show). I tried listening to Red Scare once and did find it tedious
edginess-for-the-sake-of-it.
Something else I find interesting about the comments about "hipster
Brooklyn" podcasts is that one important inspiration for them is a
long-running show by a pair of non-college educated, blue collar stoner
dads from Columbus, Ohio, called Street Fight Radio. CTH quite directly,
having "met" as online guests on this show. More specifically of interest
was a recent discussion they had with Patton Oswalt one focus of which was
more irony and edginess had become overused and was now often poisonous for
the left
https://soundcloud.com/streetfightwcrs/street-fight-with-patton-oswalt.
Also of relevance and of a bit more weight than these largely
comedy-oriented podcasts was this discussion with Doug Henwood about his
experiences in DSA, including criticism of economist tendencies such as
those influenced by Aldolph Reed, whom Henwood seems a lot more critical of
now https://www.blubrry.com/jacobin/44236868/the-dig-doug-henwood-on-dsa/
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