I think Jezer has Groucho and Karl mixed up. The actual quote is "I wouldn't want
to be a member of any club that would have me as a member."
Marty Jezer wrote:
> Thanks Carl for saying what I wanted to say.
>
> I've not followed Scheer's career with the LA Times, but let's assume he's
> moved towards the center and that I would disagree with him on five or six
> political positions. Does that make him a sell-out? No! We just disagree
> on certain issues and hopefully we'd work together on the issues we go
> agree on.
>
> People on the left still read people out of "the party" over every petty
> disagreement. With maybe 5% of the population with us we continually strive
> to get down to the 4% who are the purist (rather than striving to make it
> 5, 6, 10, 50%). And when someone breaks with us on a particular issue, we
> denounce them personally (he's sold out") instead of engaging them.
>
> Recall the 1980's when we were all anti-interventionists, fighting against
> U.S. intervention in Central America. Our best and bravest allies were
> priests and nuns in the Catholic Church!
> Fuck purity and savor the contradictions!
>
> Marx's observation that "I wouldn't join any party that would have me as a
> member" seems to hold true on the left today, just as it did in the past.
>
> Marty Jezer
>
> At 02:15 PM 8/10/2000 -0500, you wrote:
> >DEAR JEFFERY,
> >
> >FROM ONE NADER SUPPORTER TO ANOTHER:
> >
> >TO WRITE THAT BOB SCHEER IS "NO LESS A SELL-OUT" THAN DAVID HOROWITZ IS JUST
> >PLAIN IGNORANT. IT IS ALSO THE KIND OF LOW LEVEL ATTACK THAT IS A PART OF
> >THE LEFT'S PAST WE CAN AND SHOULD DO WITHOUT.
> >
> >CARL BLOICE
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: owner-sixties-l@lists.village.virginia.edu
> >[mailto:owner-sixties-l@lists.village.virginia.edu]On Behalf Of Jeffrey
> >Blankfort
> >Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2000 8:40 AM
> >To: sixties-l@lists.village.virginia.edu
> >Subject: [sixties-l] Re: sixties-l-Robert Scheer Sells Out
> >
> >
> >I picked up the National Edition of the LA Times yesterday to see what
> >it had to say about the choice of Lieberman and what do I find but a
> >column by Bob Scheer attacking Gore's choice but for the wrong reasons:
> >that Lieberman "betrayed" Clinton.
> >
> >Scheer, for those who don't remember, was one of the leading voices
> >against the Vietnam War in the SF Bay Area, and even ran for Senate. He
> >edited Ramparts during its glory days. He was an early supporter of the
> >Panthers and lived in a communal household with Tom Hayden, unsubtlely
> >called, "The Red Family." Since those days he has drifted toward the
> >center, accompanied by a cushy salary from the LA Times, as an op-ed
> >writer, and as an interviewer for Playboy. Since Clinton's election, he
> >has become an unapologetic PR man for the White House, managing to
> >overlook all those issues which would have engaged and enraged the
> >Scheer of the Sixties.
> >
> >Scheer, far more pernicious and dangerous than his old colleague at
> >Ramparts, David Horowitz, and no less a sell-out, writes that Lieberman
> >should be "boasting about the record of the Clinton-Gore years...The
> >fact is, Clinton has been a great president, presiding over eight years
> >of unprecedented prosperity and progress towards world peace."
> >
> >This from someone who has completely expunged the radical past from his
> >web site (the past which led to the position where he could sell his
> >soul to the LA Times and could even afford to sleep in the Brooks
> >Brothers fashions he is never seen without).
> >
> >In differing with Scheer on Clinton's record, I don't need, for this
> >list, to bring up the details of such domestic issues as so-called
> >welfare reform, the "effective death penalty and counter-terrorism act"
> >which has been the highlight of the greatest attack on our civil
> >liberties by any recent president, the elevation of incarceration levels
> >through the phony anti-drug war, and the trade agreements and support of
> >merger-mania which has widened the gap between rich and poor to
> >third-world proportions, nor to the international issues such as the
> >genocidal sanctions against Iraq and the promotion of the Star Wars
> >missile program that threatens to escalate the tensions between the US
> >and Russia and China, etc.
> >
> >Actually, I just remembered that Sweet Old Bob (or just the initials, as
> >I prefer) interviewed Nixon before he died or perhaps he was writing
> >immediately afterward, but then, too, he praised Nixon as one of
> >America's great presidents.
> >
> >Jeff Blankfort
>
> --
> Marty Jezer * 22 Prospect St. * Brattleboro, VT 05301 * p/f 802 257-5644
>
> Author:
> Stuttering: A Life Bound Up in Words (Basic Books)
> Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel (Rutgers University Press)
> The Dark Ages: Life in the USA, 1945-1960 (South End Press)
> Rachel Carson [American Women of Achievement Series] (Chelsea House)
> Check out my web page: http://www.sover.net/~mjez
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