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The argument for wider civil rights and social justice for: women,racial & religious minorities, workers and the LGBTQ communities hasenjoyed almost a century of "cool" and cultural domination without thereal politik gains of legal advances and shocking economic loses shownin the alarming current wage disparities, employment rights & familydebt situation. Why isn't President Obama marching across the nationmaking bold moral claims? It used to be illegal for women to vote, andillegal for a white woman to marry a black man. History often makesradical moral claims into the uncomfortable status quo. Folks whofought for the formerly impossible ideas of the freedom to marry & awoman's right to vote are modern heroes.
Will advocates for social justice continue to dominate, or will FoxNews (who recently gave the Republican Governor's Assoc. millions ofdollars) claim "cool"? Could this hope to "restore" American and blindadherence neo-liberal economics, reestablish a pre-ModernLaissez-faire capitalism with its accompanying hyper social Darwinism?With womens' reproductive rights and the environment under suchthreat, I feel like anti-immigration fervor and Texas school books aretaking us back to the Scopes Monkey Trial, and we've seriously failedour Progressive fore-fathers by not advancing more in the last 100years.
Thanks for your time & dedication,
Brennan Dineen Balestrieri
justice activist & Wisconsin resident
subject: re: Chomsky v. Hipster either/or Chomsky via Hipster?
Noam Chomsky <chomsky@mit.edu>
Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 9:06 PM
Reply-To: Noam Chomsky <chomsky@mit.edu>
To: Brennan Balestrieri <oldkitsune@gmail.com>
He's a comedian, he says. One doesn't expect much, and he obliges.
Communist party hacks were often more impressive.
I can't pretend to give a serious account of how young people react towhat I say and do. I do receive a flood of letters, and after justabout every talk there are intensive discussions that would go on allnight if I didn't have to get away. It's not a random sample, ofcourse, but it reveals a strong current of concern about the state ofthe world and what we should do about it, growing very considerablyover the years. And there are plenty of reasons for those concerns.Maybe the people who Crowder conjures up exist, outside of hisimagination or personal circles. Perhaps so. It's a complex world.I don't see them, with very extensive experience around the country,
for a great many years.
Who will dominate? That's a matter for action, not speculation, which is idle.
NC
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