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Pravda book reviews
This was written by Lou Proyect in response to the NYT's recent book reviews.
As we know, the NYT's role in US foreign policy is rather like Pravda's role in the Kremlin's.
Posted to
www.marxmail.org
24 January, 2004
Dear Daniel Okrent,
Although writing to you about unfairness in the NY Times is a lot like
pressing the "close door" button in an elevator that is not connected to
anything but acts as a kind of placebo for impatient passengers, I am moved
to write something in light of three recent reviews in your august
publication.
On January 4th, Stephanie Powers ripped Noam Chomsky's "Hegemony or
Survival" as a "raging" and "meandering" book with faulty footnotes. One
wonders if Ms. Powers was the best choice for this assignment, since she is
a long-standing ideological opponent of his point-of-view as illustrated by
the inclusion of her article in "The Fight Is for Democracy: Winning the
War of Ideas in America and the World" along with Paul Berman and Kenan
Makiya. One wonders if the NY Times would assign Tariq Ali to review a book
by Paul Berman or Kenan Makiya, if you gather my drift.
Speaking of Tariq Ali, his latest book on Iraq, as well as a batch of other
books critical of US foreign policy, is trashed in tomorrow's NY Times. I
guess this amounts to killing 6 birds with one stone. Reviewer Serge
Schmemann, an editor of your subsidiary the International Herald Tribune,
writes:
"Though I have lived abroad for many years and regard myself as hardened to
anti-Americanism, I confess I was taken aback to have my country depicted,
page after page, book after book, as a dangerous empire in its last throes,
as a failure of democracy, as militaristic, violent, hegemonic, evil,
callous, arrogant, imperial and cruel."
Did you recruit Schmemann because A.M. Rosenthal is no longer employed by
the NY Times? I can't imagine a more hostile reviewer. He comes across as a
mixture of the dotty Major Gowen on the old Fawlty Towers show and Norman
Podhoretz. Oh well, I imagine the choice wasn't accidental. It wasn't like
the Book Review editor was looking through his rolodex and had to make up
his mind between Schmemann and Naomi Klein. Right?
And in today's NY Times, there's a review of Bruce Cumings new book on
North Korea that reviewer Stephen Kotkin regards as "served up with liberal
doses of anti-American-imperialism castor oil and North Korean sugar
tablets." It is difficult to imagine anybody wanting to fork over $24.95
for such a book, which I imagine is the NY Times's intention. It would
probably be asking too much to find a reviewer who has not written
countless articles and books from a conventional Sovietologist standpoint.
With a review ending with the gratuitous observation that "The end of
Communism is a protracted process," one is left with the feeling of a lily
being gilded. Or more aptly, poison ivy being soaked in an arsenic solution.
Here is my suggestion to you, although I feel rather like a child writing
Santa Claus asking for a gift. Why not designate one day a month for
impartial reviews of books critical of US foreign policy, like the last
Sunday? Saturday is reserved for challenging crossword puzzles and reviews
of crummy direct-to-video movies, so there is a precedent for this sort of
thing. If you need the names of qualified leftists or even reviewers who do
not salivate like Pavlov's dogs when they see a book with a title like
"Bush in Babylon: The Recolonisation of Iraq," please do not hesitate to
get in touch.
Originating file:
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/fascism_and_war/Okrent.htm
For queries, or to provide criticism or any other support, please contact us at:
i n f o @ h u m a n - i n t e r e s t . o r g
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