Well worth a read
Take a look at the latest Dissent Magazine. Some kindly soul just emailed it to me. It’s really dead good.
August 20, 2007 at 9:32 pm (internet, left, voltairespriest, war)
Take a look at the latest Dissent Magazine. Some kindly soul just emailed it to me. It’s really dead good.
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Jason S. said,
August 21, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Be careful with Dissent. On balance its politics are right-wing-social democratic (it was the only journal on the US Left with contributors who supported the invasion of Iraq). Some contributors are genuine radicals, but at this point they’re few and far between.
voltaires_priest said,
August 21, 2007 at 9:26 pm
I don’t really mind it taking articles from people who supported the war, even though I didn’t. I think that’s a debate that should be had on the left, without the ritual denunciations that have characterised it so far.
However I do take your point, in the sense that all political publications should be read critically.
Red Maria said,
August 23, 2007 at 12:40 am
C’mon Veep we need more than that from you. You know you can’t duck the mega Cohen-Hari feud which is currently intoxicating the lefty blogosphere. Let’s have a post from you about it.
voltaires_priest said,
August 23, 2007 at 7:27 am
LOL believe it or not, I’m not hugely expert on the subject. However I’ll see what I can do, just for you
splinteredsunrise said,
August 23, 2007 at 9:22 am
Yes, come on. This feud is better than Bette and Joan
Red Maria said,
August 23, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Aww, fanks, Veep (blush).
I’ve penned a li’l guide for you on dolphinarium. I want you to go through it all and tell me who one should back, Hari or Cohen.
Jon Anderson (Splintered Sunrise) has already weighed in on Hari’s side.
Will said,
August 24, 2007 at 12:01 am
“it was the only journal on the US Left with contributors who supported the invasion of Iraq”
A plus.
Jason S. said,
August 24, 2007 at 2:03 am
A plus for fools, perhaps.
splinteredsunrise said,
August 24, 2007 at 8:02 am
Maria, I haven’t been talking to JA so I’m not sure what his view is. As for myself, I’m happy to critically support Hari.
johng said,
August 26, 2007 at 3:02 pm
I find all this call for a debate on the war puzzling. we had one. those in favour of the war were defeated, both logically and in the court of public opinion. The government invaded anyway. Now its all gone pearshaped they spend most of their time accusing anyone who opposed the war (and actually did something about it) of being fascist appeasers. Few are taken in.
voltaires_priest said,
August 26, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Well, there’s no problem (especially on the trot left) in revisiting old debates, is there? People have been doing “What was the class nature of the post-revolutionary Soviet Union” for like 80 years after all!
modernityblog said,
August 26, 2007 at 5:04 pm
I say the Left should revive the debate on “how best to fight fascism, and all its manifestations”
you never know, such a debate might bring a few of today’s childish and vulgar “anti-imperialists” to their senses?
johng said,
August 27, 2007 at 10:21 am
But this isn’t a ‘debate’ at all. Anymore then Bush’s recycling of far right historiography on Vietnam is a ‘debate’. In the post above you refer, correctly, to the strange obsessions of some people with pompous liberal journalism, in this blog you seem to take it seriously. Its a little bit confusing.
voltaires_priest said,
August 27, 2007 at 11:32 am
Thinking that the Hari/Cohen “feud” is a load of bollocks, is not the same thing as thinking that serious political debates should be held (or that members of certain political factions have the right to declare them “over”). One is not the same as the other. I hope this relieves your confusion.
johng said,
August 27, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Political ‘factions’? Do you mean the British, Iraqi and US publics? And are you trying to suggest that the left should be encouraging debates about further imperialist invasions?
voltaires_priest said,
August 27, 2007 at 12:15 pm
No, I mean the SWP. You coy chap, you.