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November 29, 2005
Enjoying the heat
When the Philadelphia Inquirer is good, it is very, very good. And because I find myself criticizing the paper so often, I think I have a responsibility to speak up when I have something good to say about it. So it is with "Packing heat - and political punch" -- the title of Beth Gillin's review of Tammy Bruce's The New American Revolution: Tammy Bruce calls herself "a new radical individual," which conjures up a masked anarchist with a baseball bat running through the streets shouting "Death to the state!"Now that's good! And it's right on the front page of today's "Magazine" section along with a sexy (if I may say so) picture of Ms. Bruce. The Inquirer is simply letting Tammy Bruce speak her mind, and the readers who like what she says can go buy her book, while those who don't can go pound sand. Or go buy her book and then go pound sand! While I try not to brag much, I'm proud that I've linked Tammy Bruce's site from the very beginning of this blog, because I've always admired her, and I'm delighted to see that she's done as brilliant a job as a blogger as she has as an author and activist. I think it's a testament to her combination of irrefutable logic and irresistible charm that the Inquirer's treatment of her is so wonderfully fair. Yes there's more, and it's almost all very refreshing stuff. "I spent years compromising, and at times saying things I didn't totally agree with, in order to belong to the left," Bruce says, and she didn't become a true individual until she learned to reject group-think. "It was part of my growing up."Much the same thing happened to me. Group think and identity politics are a sickness that destroys the self. For me, blogging is a counterweight which helps the constant struggle for individualism against group-think and identity politics. Tammy Bruce's answer to the charge that America is locked in a war between competing camps? Despite all the media hoopla, most Americans abhor idiotarianism: But how can she presume to describe most Americans when everyone knows the country is polarized, split, and shouting insults across a red-blue divide?I think that the new American middle consists of this unacknowledged, much-feared libertarianism. It is, of course a direct threat to the phony power games which would force us to choose between, say, Jesse Jackson and Jerry Falwell. Despite the radicalism inherent in such talk of a libertarian middle, the Inquirer's conclusion is shockingly favorable to Tammy Bruce: "The power no longer resides with the elites. The power belongs to whoever wants to take it," says Tammy Bruce with utmost confidence, sounding for all the world like a Sixties lefty at the barricades and signifying that in the fractured and shifting terrain of American political culture, labels have lost all meaning.How very true. Labels have lost all meaning, because so many of them were bogus to begin with. At this rate, the Inquirer itself will defy all attempts to label it. I couldn't be more pleased. posted by Eric on 11.29.05 at 05:56 PM
Comments
Thanks Ace. I'm glad you like both of them too. Nice to see you're posting at Gay Orbit. (It's hard to keep track of all the movement in the blogosphere these days...) :) Eric Scheie · November 30, 2005 10:32 PM |
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I've been a fan of Bruce since my uber conservative boss turned me on to her a few years ago...and I agree her blog is a worthwile read. I also like Gillin. I chatted with her last year about an article she was working on about Heather Poe (Mrs. Mary Cheney), as I had blogged about her appearances and the media coverage of the couple. She seemed a very sensible journalist on an even-keel.