LA Weekly: Features: On: A Vision of Our Own

"...today's left remains mired in a reflexive, defeatist negativity that became obvious after the election. The Nation's subscribers sent letters calling Bush voters racists, homophobes, warmongers and yahoos. Peter Beinart wrote a much-bruited New Republic piece saying that the Democrats needed to purge polarizing figures like Michael Moore (as if Karl Rove didn't thank God, er, Beelzebub, every single day for the presence of right-wing firebrands like Rush and Sean). Meanwhile, the blogosphere was filled with 'Fuck the South' e-mails and lazy ruminations on the 'red states,' a cliche that manages to insult one's intelligence and the people it supposedly describes. Much of this was rhetorically disastrous, smacking of contempt for the very people the left is hoping to persuade. Reading such things, I was often reminded of that famous old Brecht poem, 'The Solution,' in which he slyly suggests that if the East German government is unhappy with its citizens' behavior, it ought to dissolve the people and elect another."

The LA Weekly is an interesting alternative to The LA Times.