--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Huh? What does that mean? How does what he said > prove the case? It seems to > me the opposite. She has been put forward as an > example of an extremist whom > liberals should denounce. But the examples given > make her seem somewhat less > extreme to me than, say, a person writing a book > essentially accusing every > liberal in American history of being deliberate > traitors, or of a religious leader > blaming Americans he disagrees with for a terrorist > attack on our country.
Except, of course, every major figure on the right has repudiated both of the people you are referring to. National Review - to pick an example - has run multiple massive attacks on both, making precisely the argument that both of them are a disgrace. Let's see The Nation do that to Pollitt. Oh, wait, she _edits_ The Nation. Hmmm. > > If you want to argue that the left needs to police > itself the way you claim > the right does, I would respond that I don't know of > too many left-wingers who > get the kind of attention that Ann Coulter and Pat > Robertson do. Noam Chomsky > is an extremist, but he has about as much influence > in world politics as I do. > It's a simple matter of who is listening - Coulter > and Robertson get more > attention because they get more attention. They > SHOULD be denounced, by everyone. They _are_. But their counterexamples aren't. You, Tom, are so far gone in your hatred of everyone who disagrees with you that you can't see that there are people on your side of the fence who are equally vile as Coulter and Falwell. But unlike Coulter and Falwell, people like Chomsky, Pollitt, and Michael Moore are lauded as heroes. That's the difference, and it's why all your rage and venom has about as much relevance to what's really going in American civic discourse as, well, Chomsky and Pollitt. Now, I think both of them are very important figures, because they are extremely influential. One is the single most cited living intellectual. The other edits the most important magazine of th Left. They influence opinion. But they are also indicators of opinion - and the fact that people who believe what they believe are so adulated by a fragment of the political spectrum - and so completely immune from criticism from _their own side_, as opposed to from the other side, tells us something really important. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
