On 10/26/06, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
... The "Marxist-Leninist" left is skilled in this, but uses different terminology--"petty bourgeois" being the favorite. But it amounts to the same thing. Who wants to be labeled "petty bourgeoisie"? It conjures up images of epicene college professors with subscriptions to the Nation Magazine who send money in to Amnesty International and drive Volvos. They are second cousins to the stereotypical Blue State voter. "Western Leftist" is simply a new term for what amounts to the same thing.
the stereotypical Blue State (BS?) voter at least has the advantage of representing a statistical average of a sort. And I can imagine that one could pin down a demographic of "epicene college professors with subscriptions to the Nation Magazine who send money in to Amnesty International and drive Volvos" and then figure out a statistical average of their opinions. (Few, however, will admit to being epicene.) But the idea of a "Western leftist" is a totally ambiguous and excessively fluid category. What a "Western leftist" is seems to be totally in the eye of the beholder. It's a typical strawman. a check-list: (1) I'm not epicene. (2) I'm a professor (and tenured and full to boot!) (3) I subscribe to the NATION (but also MONTHLY REVIEW and Z and a bunch of other things). (4) I don't send money to Amnesty International (but I do send some to the ACLU, especially after 911). (5) I don't drive a Volvo (but I do drive a Prius). gosh, with a "liberal" reading, I'm 4 out of 5. Just shoot me. -- Jim Devine / A Typical Western Leftist -- and Proud of It!
