Returning on the 57th street crosstown bus to the east side of Manhattan on Saturday evening from the Left Forum, held this year for the first time at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, I found myself sitting on the opposite side of the aisle from two other people who had been at the event. One, a man in his mid-seventies with jack-o-lanternish missing teeth and a ponytail, was lecturing a somewhat younger woman about the evil Left Forum organizers who had chosen this college for the event. Didn’t they know that the cops are enemies of the working class? What a bunch of hypocritical bastards they were. Every attempt she made to stress the good points of the event being held there such as the convenient location, he escalated his rhetoric to the point that I began worrying that he might bite her ankle. Sizing him up, I was willing to bet a hundred dollars that he listened to WBAI at least 12 hours a day.
Growing impatient with his blather, I spoke up. I said that John Jay’s faculty was no different than any other CUNY school. Michael Meeropol, the Rosenbergs’ son, had been the chair of the economics department. I went to hear a lecture by Paul Buhle at John Jay chaired by Meeropol. Furthermore, the University of Utah—a place solidly under Mormon rule—had an economics department much more to the left than any “progressive” college in the USA. Of course, none of this would register on the congenitally ultraleft as I long ago figured out. At least it gave me the opportunity to ventilate—something that helps keep my high-blood pressure down. full: http://louisproyect.org/2014/06/02/notes-on-the-2014-left-forum/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
