Ron Radosh

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October 22nd, 2008 7:06 am

Life on the Upper Left Side

Many of you have seen the video of what happened when some naïve or perhaps brave McCain volunteers decided to march, hold signs and give out leaflets for their candidate during the annual Upper West Side Street fair in Manhattan. The fair takes place each Fall between 65^th Street and 96^th Street and Columbus Avenue in Manhattan. The fair, one of Manhattan’s largest, is a family event, and everyone regularly goes if the weather is nice. It offers clothing bargains, home-made items, food, and on two stages at each end, an array of bands and other entertainment.

Each year, candidates or their supporters regularly appear and make their appeal for votes. I recall Ed Koch himself marching with a few people when he was running for Mayor. Most people go and shake a candidate’s hand, or ignore them. After all, one does not go there to engage in political action. But the Upper West Side is what Tom Hayden once called “one of the liberated zones in America,” putting it alongside Berkeley, California and Madison, Wisconsin as safe havens for the Left. Virtually everyone who lives in what once was an eclectic and diverse neighborhood, now more than ever gentrified and inhabited by wealthy lawyers and account executives, see themselves as anywhere from the liberal side of the political spectrum to the far Left.

So when Obama supporters saw the little band marching on their turf, they erupted in anger. You might think that this was the pro-Nazis parade marching through Skokie Illinois. And in fact one of these Upper West Side Liberals yelled “Nazis” at the McCain volunteers as they passed by. Others chanted “McCain is a lying pig;” “You have no brains,” and some of these intellectuals held up their middle finger and booed in unison as the campaign workers passed . Many of them, I suspect, are on the faculties of the City University of New York, New York University, Columbia University, Fordham University, and other institutions of higher education whose faculty members almost all choose this neighborhood as their home.

What they have revealed is not that they oppose John McCain- we knew that already-but that their dedication to civil liberties- a cause they extol at length when they charge the Bush Administration with severe violations of it- is not very deep. At the very least, they still hold to the old 60’s Marcusean dictum that those they deem fascists do not have the right to speak. These liberties are reserved for people having the correct opinions and who have the people’s true interests at heart; ie, themselves.

I lived in that neighborhood from 1970 to 1992, when I moved with my family to the Washington DC area so I was not too surprised to see the video of what transpired there. Living in “a liberated zone” can feel oppressive if you differ from what the late educator and art critic Harold Rosenberg called the “herd of independent minds.”

THE REAL CAMPAIGN SMEARS

Just as I was about to publish the above, I was alerted to an important op-ed that appears in The Daily News written by James Kirchick, an Assistant Editor at The New Republic. Kirchick brilliantly raises the issue of smears. He begins by raising what many others saw as former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s strange assertion that leading Republicans have suggested that Barcak Cobama is a Muslim and a terrorist. He goes on to rveal how scores of liberal writers, some quite prominent, have regularly made their own equivalent smears against John McCain, without anyone calling them to the carpet. His main point: “If these fringe (and most of them are hardly fringe) Individuals don’t speak for American liberalism write large…then the stray hecklers at McCain-Palin rallies cannot represent American conservatism. By imputing the crazy views of a few right-wing extremists to all conservatives, Obama supporters cut off legitimate concerns about their candidate’s positions and qualifications for office.”

I also should note that Mr. Kirchick writes for and is an editor at The New Republic. As long as writers like Mr. Kirchick appear in its pages, it is more than foolish to write this journal of opinion off as a source that is not worthy to read and learn from.

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8 Comments

1. Charles:

I also lived on 112 & rsd from 1975-1991. I graduated from columbia gs 86.

I have not returned. I did go to Bolinger’s talk to alumni earlier this year in the Ronald Reagan building downtown. Bolinger was concerned that alumn donations would fall. People were outraged by columbia hosting the iranian president but thought the border guy was beyond the pale.

There’s a contingent of conservative alum at freerepublic.com currently.

Oct 22, 2008 - 8:47 am 2. cfbleachers:

Kirchick is correct, of course. On numerous counts. Yet, he does not go far enough in his analysis. What Kirchick states sub rosa, is a “you do it too” argument. It points at hypocrisy, but it perhaps unintentionally admits to an equilibrium that simply does not exist.

Trying to compare, on equal footing, one anonymous, fuzzy, muffled, unclear and undecipherable blurt-out by “someone” at a campaign rally…with an institutionalized, relentless, unfettered and seemingly endless orgy of slander on the other, is to be either too generous, too coy or too disingenuous to take at face value.

Saying <i? something , I suppose, is better than standing silent. For that, we owe a debt of gratitude and kudos. The loneliness of the courage of even that mild rebuke, belies the fact that we all are in the cortege of traditional liberalism and the values that it once wore proudly.

And therein lies the whole of it. When it takes monumental courage to speak the truth, when one can only muster a peep when a shout is demanded, when honor and integrity catch in one’s throat, the soul is at war with itself.

The institutionalized “rigging” of this contest, the orgy of lies and misdirections, the basic foundations of slander, the utter lack of conscience and good faith, the glaring omissions and the crooked “gaming” of our information upon which we must rely in order to act as participants in our own governance…is no small sin.

How does one celebrate a “fixed” win? What is the protocol for a festival of lies triumph? With whom does hypocrisy dance? In an orgy of deceit, who pays the piper?

I’m afraid we all do, even the disinvited.

Spread the cost, there is no wealth when conscience dies.

Oct 22, 2008 - 9:54 am 3. David Thomson:

“Colin Powell’s strange assertion that leading Republicans have suggested that Barcak Cobama (Obama) is a Muslim and a terrorist.”

There is zero evidence to support Colin Powell’s “strange assertion.” Is he therefore a liar? No, I don’t think so. The problem is that Powell resides within a cultural milieu surrounded by those who are minimally careless about the truth, if not outright liars. Sadly, if folks like our former U.S. secretary of state bothered to do even casual research—they would know the truth of the matter. Why are they then so intellectual lazy? Didn’t they usually attend the “best” universities? What happened to their supposed advanced ability to think and follow a logical argument?

Oct 22, 2008 - 12:17 pm 4. heather:

The internet’s anger at the Mainstream Media is real and massive, Mr. Radosh. For one thing, there have been numerous examples of MSM lies with regard to the recent Lebanon/Israel war, as well as throughout the Iraqi war.

And more recently, as many people like me have been reading the attacks on Sarah Palin, the sneers and condescension at Joe the Plumber, we are very aware that the journalists (TV as well as print) who work in the large urban centres throughout the Western World despise people like me, and like Sarah Palin and like Joe the Plumber.

I had not been aware of this, and had enjoyed reading the clever Hitchens and Brooks essays, and even purchased their books. Well, no more.

And as a purely catty aside: Couric’s attempt at sneering anti-Palin irony, by adopting Palin’s hairdo the other night was a definite mistake: the word is ‘bedraggled’, Katie. You looked bedraggled, and your hair and your fairly aged face does not have the oomph to pull off Sarah’s look.

Oct 22, 2008 - 1:11 pm 5. Hugh:

Good to see you “on station” , Mr.Radosh- I have been reading you for yrs and recall the 60s very clearly- no jokes about forgetting/zombied out , allowed- our generations’ narcissism and dearth of a sense of integrity or shame is clearly on display in this “election”…I wonder what the unelected and unrepresentative “elites” in Brussels are thinking- namely, that they may just “get away” with their perfidy? ‘Tis chilling to contemplate…be well and write copiously.

Oct 22, 2008 - 2:49 pm 6. Jim Pharo:

In all seriousness, is this meant as parody? These liberals who yell, shout and call these provacateurs names are denying civil liberties? Can’t believe this is meant seriously…

And what’s with all the animus directed at college faculty. You say “faculty” like it’s a bad thing.

By the way, the equivalent of people yelling at “treason, “terrorist, “etc., at Palin and McCain events would be if people at Biden and Obama rallies called out “Flashback,” “Collaborator” and “baby killer” referring to McCain.

You guys either should publish with National Lampoon or make some friends…

Oct 23, 2008 - 12:07 pm 7. Shinobi:

I feel compelled to point out that booing, flicking off, shouting chanting and generally throwing tantrums, while not exactly mature and intellectual discourse, infringe on no one’s civil liberties.

McCain supporters have a right to free speech. Expressing (even rudely) one’s disagreement is also an act of free speech and infringes on no one’s rights.

Oct 24, 2008 - 8:08 am 8. huckleberry fin:

so instead of setting up a table, or talking one on one, the campaign workers “marched” upon a “family event”. then when they freely achieved their confrontational goal (thanks to freedom of speech)you cry that they got boos and fingers(someone elses free speech).

so you wanted to poop on a picnic AND get thanked for it.

and that didnt happen?

poor thing.

I suggest you read Dale Carnegies “how to win friends and influence people” because you simply lack people skills.

but you can learn if you want to.

Now the rest of us are going to enjoy our picnic. You have a choice, you can stomp your feet and hold your breath or you can go do your homework, think about what you did, and when your ready to appreciate your neigbors and learn something new come join the picnic.

its up to you.

Oct 25, 2008 - 7:45 am