Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
"American Leftists, Michael Moore, and Ralph Nader":
<http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/american-leftists-michael-moore-and.html>
This Mark Ames is a real piece of work, isn't he? He barely looks old
enough to shave, but has the gall to dress down the US left. What gives
this cheap imitation of Hunter Thompson the license to grade people in
this fashion? We have no need to justify ourself to a carpet-bagger like
him.
He calls us the Vichy Left, in comparison to Moore who wrote Valentines
to the war criminal Wesley Clark. If anybody should be accused of
collaborating with the enemy, it is the disgusting ABB crowd that
grovels at the feet of John "stay the course" Kerry, not people who go
out and organize mass demonstrations and who will only get mentioned in
Time Magazine as fans of Kim Jong Il, if at all.
Part of the problem with Ames is that he has a bizarre understanding of
what constitutes the "left" in the USA. He writes, "Incredibly enough,
the most vicious attacks against Moore come from the LA Weekly, perhaps
the most relevant Leftist outlet combining cultural/film criticism and
leftist ideology." What fucking planet does this guy live on? I used to
hang out with Jay Levin, who started LA Weekly in the 1980s. He sold it
to a bunch of hustlers in the 1990s who first eviscerated the radical
politics and then hired slugs like Marc Cooper and Harold Myerson to
write social democratic pap. Levin was into the FSLN, the people who run
it now are into making money through massage parlor ads and articles
about where to buy the best burrito in LA. If this life-style weekly is
supposed to be "leftist", then I am Jesus Christ's nephew.
Thrown into the "leftist" category along with the LA Weekly are Dissent,
the Village Voice and salon.com. Right. Boiling cauldrons of Bolshevism,
don't you know.
Oddly enough, the only genuine leftist that gets a wad of Ames's venom
is wsws.org who actually fell over backwards praising Moore's film. He
is bothered, however, by their boilerplate sectarian quibble with
Moore's fuzzy politics: "The director here has taken the line of least
resistance, succumbing to the lure of the easy exlanation, rather than
providing a more profound analysis. The popular outpouring confirms that
a radicalizatin [sic] is under way in the US, with far-reaching
implications." The hardboiled Ames remonstrates with the sectarians:
"But not to worry. Marx is going to be right one of these days, and that
day is finally at hand."
I don't know. I take a look at imperial occupation of Iraq, immiseration
of most of the 3rd world and declining living standards in the
industrialized countries and Marx seems as right as ever. Of course,
there will always be people who sneer at Marxists in this fashion. It is
almost a guarantee that you will make steady advances in a journalism
career. Such people are welcome to the bitch goddess success.
--
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
