Whilst not agreeing with the title of this thread, it does strike me as accurate to say that Lawrence's conception of 'the left' has little bearing on the broad spectrum of political thought that might be considered to the left of his views. (Which is to say the vast majority of the American populace). Those furthest away from Lawrence's viewpoint - the far left - might well possess viewpoints that coincide with Lawrence's vitriol but here's the rub, for the most part they have miminal power in the political process. Lawrence, even for him,. is spewing at the moment because his neocon project, the one he has been talking up for the last five years, is going down the pan. Of course he's blaming it on 'the leftists' - no doubt all those extremists who voted the Republicans out of both houses - when what really happened was that those right wing policies, the whole neoconservative agenda, was actually a crock of shit. Sure we get the odd sentence of contrition - I did wonder if they could see it through - but for the most part it's the opposition, the leftists, who are at fault. Which is pretty amazing since the Republicans had both houses and the presidency, all the political power you could want in America, and still managed to screw it up. What does that tell you Lawrence? ----- Original Message ----- From: Brian To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 3:47 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] The Left Only Exists In Lawrence's Head I've been noticing the persistence of the list in using quotes about "the Left" and "Leftists" when Lawrence uses it and have seen it used to try and sidestep or ignore his points. I see people saying that he has it all wrong but they don't provide much corrective and obviously take its pejorative as an affront. But aren't there proud Leftists on the list? Who here uses the word Leftist to describe themselves? Is liberal preferable and what would delineate the liberals from the Leftists? I think that liberals and the Left have become indistinguishable and that forty years ago a liberal like JFK were for lowering taxes, using the military of the U.S. to fight evil, and believed the U.S. was the greatest nation in the world. How many Leftists does that describe? In Bernard Goldberg's Arrogance he talks about how liberals (in this case Manhattan media elites) don't even think of themselves as liberals but as realists (sound familiar?) and so don't use that word to label themselves. They and all their friends and colleagues think much the same about abortion, guns, taxes, foreign policy, and the like and anyone who doesn't gets labeled as neoconservative, religious extremist, ultra-right winger, selfish, fundamentalist. ~Brian Birmingham, AL On Dec 12, 2006, at 8:53 AM, Irene Cassidy wrote: Leftists the way you use it is tantamount to bogieman On Dec 14, 2006, at 11:54 AM, Mike Geary wrote: The most aggravating thing about Lawrence's accusation that the "Left" is anti-American is that he's right -- the "Left" is anti the America that the Right wants us to be On Dec 13, 2006, at 8:35 AM, Omar Kusturica wrote: It was the conservatives not "the Left" On Dec 13, 2006, at 11:53 PM, Andreas Ramos wrote: The "Leftists" didn't stop Bush