Re: Re: Freedom to Spew

On Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 01:22:54AM -0800, Michael Zara wrote:

>.  The saddest thing
> about l'affaire Horowitz is that now he's more than just the little known
> reactionary laff-fest on Salon, but an Anti-Reparations Force To Be Reckoned
> With

Eh, I doubt that. He was already more than just his crappy stuff on
Salon. He's in the political bookchat, C-Span orbit. It's hard to know
what's more disheartening: what he says, or that he has, as you pointed
out, seemingly endless venues in which to say it. Imagine: he has a publisher,
an agent, *fans*, maybe even groupies (Eeek!).

I saw him on a panel at the LA Book Festival earlier this year (or late
last) and many in the audience just fawned over him; he was quite pathetic
at the whole thing, but I was reeling from the degree to which ordinary
people -- what's perhaps too euphemistically called 'polite society' -- takes
him seriously and was prepared to give him a fair hearing.

> -- a role quite beyond his limited abilities (fussing and yowling).  I
> think I will recommend to Ralph and also to Tom Hayden, lets say, to take
> out ads in Fortune, Business Week, etc.!

Still the funniest stuff I've ever read of Scumowitz's is his so-called
criticisms of Chomsky. Now *that's* good stuff if you need a laugh!

Btw, you're 'l'affaire Horowitz' was almost trumped by my cite of a
really pertinent Chomsky quote during l'affaire Faurisson; something to the
effect that even if Faurisson had the right to deny the Holocaust, one
couldn't even stoop to discuss his views without already forfeiting one's
humanity.

That's just about right vis-a-vis Horowitz's 'gratitude for slavery'
assault.

if-speech-qua-action-makes-me-ex-liberal-so-be-it-ly yr's, Kendall