E Nigma – First post that seems to speak to my little point re what is a “Marxist” (other than a term of abuse used lazily by too many posters here). Folks are really hanging loose on this front. Wade – Calling the Clintons “Marxists” just empties the term of any hint of meaning. Robert Rubin was his key economic advisor, no? His best buds are billionaires and he was the guy who (famously) finished off the New Deal. Clinton was a status quoer – era of big gov is over – not a radical newbie like Roosevelt. It’s also hard to see how you can turn Soros into Marx’s bedfellow. Soros is an echt rep of (late) finance capital. He surely has a Karl for a hero. But it’s Popper not Narx. That’s the source of his faith in “Open Societies” and his constant celebration of the method of “falsification”…One more – You mention the origins of SDS – THe Port Huron Statement (founding doc of SDS) wasn’t close to being a Marxist document if (as seems to be the case here) one assumes that Marxism means some version of economic determinism…Tom Hayden et al could be abused for their lack of class consciousness. (And their socialist elders in the labor movement did just that – along with unsuccessfully guilting them for not taking a harder line against Communism.) Down the line many SDSers would be played – and play themselves – for being too bourgie. So a guy like Ayers ended up trying to go macho since he couldn’t be prole-ier than thou – BTW – noticed a couple of posters mixed me up with someone who noted that Ayers now seems polite and professorial. Didn’t say that myself though it’s all true. Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of abuse from academic leftists. A lot censorious types out there (as Voltiman will affirm). Ayers isn’t one of them – he doesn’t come on as a quasher or someone who assumes everyone who disagrees with him is a sell-out…He was once a little Totalitarian – His politics still suck but at this point, his democratic instints beat those of many folks on the left (and right)…

I notice that Wretch is still affirming that OBama is “hiding in plain sight” – but – 6 months down the line – still no indication the Cat has bothered to read the guy’s memoir. O is not hiding – He is a liberal in a great tradition. (That reminds me – Wade – you remember FDR’s phrase – “economic royalists” – Who is their candidate? – It ain’t OBama!) Modern liberals have never have been contemptuous of Marx’s insights though they know the Old Moor’s writing is so powerful that it’s dangerous. Fools rush in…

And on that front – Re Wretch assertions about O’s “fascistic” behavior – Thought Mr. R. Reilly had put paid to the Hitler = Obama equations here a while back but it don’t stop – BTW – Hope they release those Foundation reoords – But if you guys want a Foundation horror story, might read the opening of Tom Frank’s new book – Lovely bit about how the Apartheid era South AFrican gov financed an important right wing Foundation that gave us Jack Abramowitz (among others).

Voltiman – You’re right I’ve never been committed to literary scholarship (though Auerbach’s Mimesis is still It for me). I do know a little about the modern history of the humanities – and English in particular – both in the U.S. and in the UK. If you try this piece http://www.firstofthemonth.org/archives/2006/09/late_in_his_lif.html, you’ll see I really had no choice in the matter. Family business…Osmosis…W.E.

Doubt I should back-off entirely on my line re the rot within adademic Old Boys’ networks – Here’s a graph by a REAL feminist – not one of the careerist ones – that might speak to you…It comes near the end of a piece about a hagiographic film treatment of NEw York intellectuals – THe author – Ellen Willis (originary radical feminist and New Journalist – wrote ..

I found myself wishing I could have talked to Dorman about my experience as a student at Barnard in the early 60s. ONe of the attractions of Barnard was suppposed to be the opportunity to take courses at Columbia, and I, as an English major, was naturally eager to take courses with such giants in the earth as Lionel Trilling and F. W. Dupee. I was told, however, that the English Dept faculty had a policy of not allowing women in their classes because our presence would distract from the seriousness of the learning that went on there. The shameless bluntness of the assertion – the absence of any impulse to obscure with euphemism – still strikes me as breathtakingly rude, even in a pre-feminist context. Nearly as much as the discriminatory policy itself , it gets at what was corrupt about the authority to which the Trillings and their collegagues felt entitled, and why their horror of the student rebels’ incivility rang so false. Any honest account of the New York Intellectuals must acknowledge that corruption and give the ’60s cultural radicals their due…

Willis was no ressentiment-monger – She didn’t roll with all post-60s assaults on Authority in the classroom. But history is a, ah, bitch. Simplistic Decline of Culturalism won’t quite do…Hey – Does this pudding have a theme? Not enough of one…

PS Glad to hear Peter isn’t cursing me for showing my face again – For real!