Susan Sontag II (1982)

[Latimer]

''Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Reader's Digest between 1950 and 1970, and someone in the same period who read only The Nation or The New Statesman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of Communism? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?''

 

[NotHardUp1]

Any student of American history knows that capitalist blunted the nascent socialist labor movement of the first third of the 20th century. Ever since, and with newer injection of hysteria in the Cold War, the term has been used as propaganda similar to The Great Satan used by Iranian mullahs. At the very same time, the incredible subsidies doled out to industrialists, "job creators" and other elite have gone unchecked with additional privileges garnered over the decades.

And what did that leave us with? We have a two-party system where both are willing to use the judiciary for uneven legal interpretations of law. Both are willing to use gerrymandering and political contributions to ensure no third party succeeds in dethroning the Tweedel Dee Tweedle Dum ulitimatums at the ballot box. Both parties bundle legislation that is untenable in order to hide pork. Both parties decry legislative scheming and stalemates while perpetuating the archane rules that allow such outrages as the Speaker refusing to bring a vote on Ukraine or the Senate leader to squash the right of a sittitng President to replace a Supreme Court seat vacated.

The corruption of the Roman Senate was its own undoing. Without it, the Caesars would have never had the support of the masses to bring it all down. Ergo, Trump

I suspect both Sontag threads will get bundled, and then banished to CE&P. It's really hard to not see the quote above as within the realm of politics.

 

[rareboy]

I can't imagine anyone really going to the effort of creating two separate threads.

Sontag's writings were intended to provoke discussion...but deserve context.

From the Times:

SUSAN SONTAG PROVOKES DEBATE ON COMMUNISM (Published 1982)

www.nytimes.com

 

[NotHardUp1]

I wonder if Buckley ever had her on his show.

 

[NotHardUp1]

I find it hard to dislike her when listening to the attack interview.

And another a decade or so later: