UdoKier
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 02:48 AM
Original message |
Poll question: Your Favorite Lefty Writer |
|
Your Favorite Lefty Writer
|
ibegurpard
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 02:49 AM
Response to Original message |
UdoKier
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 02:52 AM
Response to Reply #1 |
|
If you only love Twain for his prose, you needn't put Twain.
It's from the standpoint of being a lefty, not simply a writer. As a writer, Twain is best hands down, but as a lefty, I personally like the persective of Studs Terkel.
I thought Twain might be a good choice for thouse who don't read a lot of political/intellectual screeds.
|
ibegurpard
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 03:13 AM
Response to Reply #2 |
6. Well, I'd have to say Molly |
|
for her ability to highlight complex issues and put a folksy and accessible spin on them.
|
MaryH
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 08:36 AM
Response to Reply #6 |
16. Molly is my favorite, too |
TaleWgnDg
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 02:54 AM
Response to Original message |
3. yeah . . . a lousy selection . . . |
|
Edited on Wed Sep-15-04 02:56 AM by TaleWgnDg
and, btw, why haven't you read Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s book "Crimes Against Nature?" I highly recommend it.
=================================== "The anti-environment agenda of today's White House was honed and perfected during Bush's gubernatorial years. It was in Texas that he developed the tactics and policies that guide his autocratic leadership today: closed-door meetings with industry insiders who are among his biggest campaign contributors; reliance on pseudo-scientific 'studies' by right wing think tanks; emasculation of regulations that cut into industry profits; citizens muzzled in debates that affect their communities.
"Soon after becoming governor, Bush declared tort reform an 'emergency issue' and appointed judges who made it all but impossible for Texans to bring class action lawsuits against polluters. In 1995 he pushed through the Private Real Property Rights Preservation Act, a radical 'takings' bill that would make taxpayers pay polluters' cost of complying with pollution laws. According to this view, corporations should be able to do what they want with their private property; if the state cuts into their profits by forcing them to adopt pollution-control measures, the state (i.e., the public) should pay. This perverse doctrine reverses a millennium of western property law that holds that owners can use their property as the please, but never in a way that diminishes their neighbors' property or the public trust properties like air and water. Leading the charge for this radical new approach was right-wing private-property advocate Marshall Kuykendall, who complained at a public forum that the last time the federal government took our property without compensation is 'when Lincoln freed the slaves.' " -- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., "Crimes Against Nature" ===================================
|
Bridget Burke
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 02:58 AM
Response to Original message |
|
Plus his friend Pablo Neruda (who wrote some fine prose as well as the poetry for which he won the Nobel prize).
Eduardo Galeano's "Memory of Fire" trilogy is a fine overview of hemispheric history (art as well as politics). His "Soccer in Sun & Shadow" is a history of the World Cup--with political background.
Paco Ignacio Taibo II, born in Spain to radicals who fled to Mexico, is a historian. But he's also written delightful detective novels that do not hide his political beliefs. His biography of Che was quite fine.
|
maveric
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 03:10 AM
Response to Original message |
|
"On The Road" inspired me.
|
IrateCitizen
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 10:40 AM
Response to Reply #5 |
29. I loved Kerouac's work too, but he was a RWer late in life |
|
From what I have read, he became a real asshole after he became famous. Kurt Vonnegut had a good account of his sole encounter with Kerouac, toward the end of Kerouac's life, in which Jack tried to start a fight with Vonnegut's son in Vonnegut's house.
I've also read that he was very supportive of Nixon right before he died.
|
JI7
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 03:22 AM
Response to Original message |
7. you should do one for non fiction and fiction, and where is Krugman ? |
JSJ
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 03:29 AM
Response to Original message |
8. hunter s, dalton trumbo, bud shultz, john berger, w. grieder, naomi klein |
althecat
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 04:28 AM
Response to Original message |
9. Greg Palast, DUs own William Pitt and Arundhati Roy |
Speed8098
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 05:10 AM
Response to Original message |
Blue Gardener
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 05:22 AM
Response to Original message |
Cats Against Frist
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 05:36 AM
Response to Original message |
morgan2
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 05:43 AM
Response to Original message |
|
you forgot to put the 12 apostles, or whoever you want to credit with actually writting the bible. The life of Jesus Christ is about as lefty as it gets.
|
Minstrel Boy
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 08:32 AM
Response to Original message |
|
Not only is his prose the most elegant but Vidal, better than most, frames America's trip to Hell under Bush in the historical context of the end of the Republic and the rise of the National Security State.
|
Laughing Mirror
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 10:54 AM
Response to Reply #14 |
|
Gore always gives credit to Charles Beard or John Jay Chapman as being America's greatest historians, but in my lifetime nobody even comes close to Gore, and I've been reading him for 35 years.
|
IrateCitizen
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 08:35 AM
Response to Original message |
15. Where's Kurt Vonnegut? |
|
Seriously, I never would have engaged myself in studying "alternative" US history had it not been for the messages in his fictional works. And reading the interviews with him are REALLY fascinating. He's the one who introduced me to the wonderful legacy of Eugene V. Debs.
|
NoPasaran
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 08:39 AM
Response to Original message |
in_cog_ni_to
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 08:44 AM
Response to Original message |
Ravenseye
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 08:54 AM
Response to Original message |
|
He's not just some schlub he's an economics professor.
I love Michael Mooore's films, but lets be honest. I'll believe the squirmy little tweed wearing Princeton economisist on this stuff.
|
Butterflies
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 08:57 AM
Response to Reply #19 |
21. I choose Paul Krugman too. I never miss his colomns. |
kaitykaity
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 08:55 AM
Response to Original message |
20. Krugman because he is the |
|
most relevant and most effective. "It's the economy, stupid."
|
chiburb
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 08:58 AM
Response to Original message |
22. Other: Plaid Adder, Will Pitt, Barb O'Brien (Maha) n/t |
el_gato
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 09:11 AM
Response to Original message |
Darranar
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 09:40 AM
Response to Original message |
rhite5
(510 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 10:30 AM
Response to Original message |
25. Krugman -- timely, accessable and authoritative |
htuttle
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 10:34 AM
Response to Original message |
|
I like all the others, but Arundhati Roy's work is like a breath of fresh air to me.
|
coalition_unwilling
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 10:37 AM
Response to Original message |
27. Arundhati Roy (winner of Booker prize) |
|
She's also helped me keep my sanity during these dark hours.
|
Tierra_y_Libertad
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 10:39 AM
Response to Original message |
28. Leo Tolstoy. The greatest novelist, ever. |
|
"War and Peace" should qualify him as the best anti-war, anti-wealth, pro-people author. Not to mention his other writings in favor of anarchism (not "anarchy" for those who don't understand anarchism).
Joe Heller for Catch-22 would be my second choice.
|
robbedvoter
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 10:50 AM
Response to Reply #28 |
32. Tolstoi was an aristocrat who abused his wife, hated women and was |
|
quite reactionary on a number of things.
|
Tierra_y_Libertad
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 11:07 AM
Response to Reply #32 |
35. Perhaps, but the question was about his writing. |
|
Which is the finest ever put on paper. Tolstoy may have been an aristocrat, but his writings attack the aristocracy and oligarchy throughout. Reactionary? I don't think so. Try "Resurrection" to see about his "hatred of women" and his feelings about the aristocracy.
He may have beat his wife (I don't know about that) but that's kind of like saying that Picasso was a lousy artist because he womanized or that Pablo Neruda wasn't really a leftist poet because he wrote so much about love and sex.
|
RichardRay
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 10:41 AM
Response to Original message |
30. Ivins from the names listed, and |
|
I was thinking about Krugman, too. But I'm not sure I'd call him a 'lefty', he's just honest, rigorous, well educated and a good writer. As an economist with his background he's probably more centrist politically.
Richard Ray - Jackson Hole, WY
|
SOS
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 10:41 AM
Response to Original message |
Jack_Dawson
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 10:57 AM
Response to Original message |
Lori Price CLG
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 11:26 AM
Response to Original message |
36. Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D. |
|
Michael Rectenwald is my favorite 'Lefty' writer. http://legitgov.org/mikerectenwald_writings_101501.htmlLori Price
|
FredScuttle
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 11:27 AM
Response to Original message |
|
personal bias here....he was my media professor at Johns Hopkins many years ago.
|
proud patriot
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Wed Sep-15-04 11:33 AM
Response to Original message |
DU
AdBot (1000+ posts) |
Fri May 03rd 2024, 01:16 AM
Response to Original message |