From: Jim Devine <[email protected]> Someone should mention the content of Cockburn's (and Silverstein's) critique of the Southern Poverty Law Center. It's that it exaggerates the prevalence of racism in the South in order to raise funds for its own leaders. That critique is plausible to me, since my impression is that Chicago (where I came from) is just as racist as the South in the era after the Civil Rights Act. Further, though I could be wrong, I doubt that a significant number of people has been lynched in the South in recent decades, but the SPLC has sent me pictures of lynchings. (My mom used to send a lot of money to them -- and a couple of their books to me.)
^^^^ CB: My Mom gets the SPLC newsletter , too. However, from my glances at it, it discusses fascistic racist groups in the North too. Is Alexander Cockburn got some counter data ? Over my decades in organizations like Klan-watch and the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, I haven't really heard much about Cockburn's participation in our efforts to fight the fascistic right. Cockburn is a climate change denialist , too, no ? Oh yeah I remember now. Several years back Cockburn had a thesis on making left-right unity with people like the group bombed in Texas. Remember that ? His libertarian streak. This is a continuation of that line. It's clear to me , now. If SPLC sent you pictures of lynchings, why do you doubt there have been lynchings ? Anyway, Cockburn is not a good source on this issue. He's something of a crackpot on this. Lou Pro has an essay on him "The political devolution of Alexander Cockburn" http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/american_left/cockburn.htm Lou says: "Cockburn's most infamous article on the militias likened them to the Zapatistas. He couldn't seem to understand why leftists in the US were willing to solidarize with Mayan peasants fighting for land reform and democracy, but held the American militias at arm's length. Any fool could have explained to Cockburn what the problem was. The American militias were primarily composed of xenophobes, who not only hated the federal government but blacks, American Indians and immigrants as well. Their goal was to return the US to its constitutional roots, a dubious prospect for all those disenfranchised peoples that the founding fathers had little use for, including the slaves and the indigenous peoples. One could only wonder where Cockburn would be going next with this glorification of rural neopopulism. Would the Ku Klux Klan be the next group to be eulogized as "misunderstood white workers"? " So, Cockburn's denial of increase in KKK-like organizations is part of his longer term strange thesis on leftists uniting with rightwing US militias. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Cockburn "On March 16, 2009 Cockburn officially became a new columnist for the paleoconservative Chronicles magazine.[4]." _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
