LBO Tiff goes Viral on Counterpunch. I laughed, hence the absurd subject line. Here is Michael Yates' essay:
``St. Clair's essay, "The Silent Death of the American Left," succinctly discusses the absence of a left-wing presence and activism in the face of myriad social and ecological disasters. Somewhat surprisingly, this straightforward account elicited sharp criticism-St. Clair's pessimism was unwarranted and a sign of an intellectual pathology of defeatism, especially in light of the move of some liberal intellectuals toward the left and agitations such as OWS and the Chicago Teachers Union strike. One troubling criticism of the article was that the author was some sort of "Edward Abbeyist," a reference to the great writer of the American West. Abbey, it was argued, was a representative of an anti-urban philosophy that was out-of-date, with nothing to offer the 80 percent of the U.S. population.. http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/28/one-nation-one-world/ It got started with this by Marv Gandall: ``Below is a rather overwrought illustration in today's Counterpunch of the idealist pessimism of the US left which I alluded to in my previous post. The cry of despair by the magazine's editor, Jeffrey St. Clair attributes the "somnambulism" of the masses to their "betrayal" by cowardly and wrongheaded liberals and DP-oriented leftists - a favourite theme of Carrol's and others on this and related lists.'' To which Doug answered, ``JSC is no Marxist, if that's what you're implying. He's some sort of Edward Abbeyist or something. This despair is too thick. The kids are great. Krugman is quoting Kalecki.'' This must have ticked off Yates: ``Doug says St. Clair is an Edward Abbeyist. What does this mean? Out here in the sticks, we really like Abbey. He liked the kids too. and they loved him. They're still working hard to save these sticks from all the capitalist predators ..'' And Doug answered: ``A serious minority of the U.S. population lives in the sticks. As many people live in NYC as in the 10 smallest states combined - in Brooklyn as the 4 smallest states. You are not the Real America. The Abbey agenda has nothing serious to offer the 80% of the U.S. pop that lives in metro areas.'' A lot was stirred up that really needs better treatment. The manipulated division between urban and rural has been the backbone of US politics since before the Constitution. CG _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
