"A shameful thing happened," Matthew Rothschild intones and no, he's not speaking about his magazines refusal to cover young America or provide them with a voice in the magazine he's the chair of (The Progressive).
He's speaking of students at Columbia or at least his interpretation of their actions when Jim Gil Christ of the Minuteman project came to speak.
Rothschild says that he's basing his conclusions on "at least according to some reports". Some reports? We called friends there. (C.I. called professors --including one who's an old lover -- and Rebecca says that stays in or "I scream bloody murder. I'm not the only one with a sexual past!") What we found out was what we knew before we started calling. (Possibly Matthew Rothschild has no friends, or ex-lovers, at Columbia to call?)
Jim Gil Christ came to Columbia at the invitation of the College Republicans with the intent of spreading his hate speech. Students opposed organized. Some walked on stage, two of which unfurled a banner. They did not attack Gil Christ nor any of the Minutemen. One student was attacked.
Whose free speech is it?
That's our question for Matthew Rothschild. It's a funny sort of free speech where only one can get out a message. It's a non-interactive, top-down speech he seems to favor. Oh sure, he tells you, you can boo and hiss and heckle. If your boos and hisses drown out the speaker have you stepped on their "right to be heard"? Rothschild tosses around words like "gagged." That's inflamtory language and a shoddy argument and even for the too often timid Rothschild. (And that's how we see it.) He wasn't "gagged."
If you're in favor of booing and hissing and heckling, then a banner isn't a problem. Bum rushing the stage isn't a problem. So what bee got up his bonnet that he called the students' behavior "shameful"? The same bee that flies up his bonnet too often if you ask us: The need to be 'respectable.'
Unfurling banners? We're all for it. We applaud CODEPINK's many successes in that area. What happened was that Gil Christ couldn't stand free speech. He couldn't stand the fact that the truth was displayed in banner form and that he was revealed as a liar instead of being embraced. He wasn't for free speech when he appeared on Democracy Now! either in what was supposed to be a debate with student activist Karina Garcia -- not only did he bail before the half-way point, he had his attorney present to vet his remarks.
But ain't it good to know he's got a friend . . . in Rothschild? Instead of applauding the students for making their voices heard (and they didn't escort the Minutemen out, the Minutemen elected to leave), he wants to call the students "goons." (Sidebar: Is Rothschild's a shameless plugger? What's with all the use of "progressives" in his commentary. We asked students if they self-identified that way, or if they'd been contacted by Rothschild, "no" was the answer on both questions. One joked that being called a "progressive" may have been the biggest insult Rothschild made towards them.)
The "goon," in this case, is Rothschild. Like Gil Christ, only his voice will be heard if he can have his way. The man who hired a middle-aged man (naturally) to write about a student led movement (the immigration rights movement that kick started last spring by students) still can't find a way to include students in his magazine or commentaries except on the recieving end of a scold.
Mike was writing about this on Friday and called C.I. (who does like Rothschild's work) to make sure it was "okay." [The response was, "Write what you feel and I'll have no problem with it."] When C.I. told the core group about this, we got on the phone to find out what the "goons" thought of Rothschild. Let's just break it to him gently, it wasn't pretty.
But, as one pointed out, the only way a young person is noted by any outlet of The Progressive is "when it's time for them to grab you by the ear and pull you to the woodshed. Is it any wonder that most students don't bother to read it?" No, it's really not.
Last week, Rebecca was pitching an article but there wasn't time. This week, as C.I. noted, "It goes to pattern." What had bothered Rebecca was the "Editor's Note" of the October 2006 issue where the chair of the board of directors, Rothschild, appears to equate his stance with Human Rights Watch (which Rebecca doesn't care for). It went to pattern because of the "according to some reports" Rothschild offered in his radio commentary. Where does Rothschild get his information?
Does independent media read independent media? If they did, Rothschild might not have penned his valentine/mash note to Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch. On the page four "Editor's Note" (entitled "Cheap Slurs" -- and, no, he's not talking about his own treatment of students and young Americnas), Rothschild writes, "Kenneth Roth . . . did not back down." He's referring to the calling out of the violence when the Israeli government went wack-job all summer. (We're sure you're familiar with it, independent media dropped every other story to cover it nonstop.)
Roth didn't back down? Were we Thomas Friedman, we'd leave it at, "Matthew Rothschild, meet The Nation." But we're not lazy and empty minded. (Nor fond of ripping off comedic bits that failed years ago.) Writing in The Nation, Philip Weiss noted:
Remaining in the mainstream is vital to HRW. While Roth stuck to his guns on Israel's "indiscriminate" bombings, and the organization repeatedly condemned Israel's use of cluster bombs in civilian areas, it also seemed to go out of its way toward the end of the war to blast both sides. The chariness alienated the international left. Roel Bramer, a Dutch-Canadian, resigned from the board of the Toronto chapter of HRW in August, saying its criticism of Israel was too tepid. In a resignation letter, Bramer wrote, "Ken [Roth] is quoted as stating that we abide by a 'fact/research-based application of international human rights and humanitarian law'" and criticize governments on human rights grounds, not political ones. "I feel that HRW should protest boldly and loudly against this borderline genocide and the calamitous rubble and grief Israel has left behind."
Roth does not appear to be too worried about his credibility on the left. He is much more concerned about the right, even if that means fielding arguments about whether the Bible is primitive. One board member, Shibley Telhami, an Arab-American who is sometimes enraged by Israel's actions, says engaging the pro-Israel community is vital to the organization's mission, and his own. "The New York Sun is framing HRW in a context that resonates with a community that's much broader.... What you have here is Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, within the American political mainstream, not just the Jewish groups, saying that this is about Israel's right to defend itself and let them finish the job. But you've got to connect, so you think, What is the best mix of effectiveness, credibility and principle? I struggle with that every day."
We're beginning to worry that the same is true of Rothschild? Could you, for instance, safely say, "Rothschild does not appear to be too worried about his credibility on the left. He is much more concerned about the right . . ."?
Roth, Human Rights Watch in fact, is a lot like PBS and NPR, they've gotten used to ignoring the left and catering to the right. Roth will worry, fret and respond to the right. They will, as they did, increase their criticism of Lebanon to appear "fair." The left?
Forget it. They don't care. They want you to be there when they need money and they're under attack. But they'll program (NPR and PBS) and issues statements (Roth, et al) to appease the right. Why does the media tilt right? One reason is because so many continue to cater to it.
Which brings us back to Rothschild. What's really the purpose of him covering students at Columbia? He's not been interested in students for much of 2006. It's like the nonsense where he couldn't shut up about the 9-11 Truth Movement. He ignores and ignores, then finds the area he wants to lash out on.
Is The Progressive's goal to become this decade's The New Republican? It seems headed that way with its useless 'beltway talk' from Ruth Conniff. Yes, you can point to Howard Zinn. You could point to Barbara Ehrenreich at The New Republican when it was gasping for breath in the 80s. (We enjoy Ehrenreich -- who is not in every issue -- so we'll try not to suggest too strongly that her addition to a magazine is the print equivalent of "jumping the shark.") But the mag's top heavy on Ruth Conniff, Amit Pal (who appears to be not just to the right of Arundhati Roy but to the right of Fareed Zakaria as well) and Matthew Rothschild -- all of whom seem to breathe and exhale The New York Times -- by choice.
In his "Cheap Slurs" note, Rothschild writes that his "predecessor, Erwin Knoll, used to say, 'If we're not pissing someone off every month, we're not doing our job.'" Who gets pissed off by The Progressive these days? It's the most mild banquet of bland you could imagine more often than not. (Though readers published on the mag's letters page would disagree -- they've been vocal all summer along about their problems with the magazine.)
In fact, the most excitement the mag's caused in recent months was last week when we all wondered, "Who the hell is Amber Hewins?" (C.I. put us wise.) There was Hewins writing to us, "Dear Friend" (we feel just awful for not knowing her), about what a dandy gift The Progressive made. We'll note that she cited two writers for the magazine -- Molly Ivins and Howard Zinn. We wouldn't cite Ruth Conniff's scribbles if we were trying to lure money either but Ivins, like Zinn, doesn't appear every issue. (C.I. notes when Hewins sent out the same type of letters for The New York Review of Books, she noted approximately twenty writers. These days, apparently, the pickings are slim . . .)
So let's be really clear. The Progressive's coverage of the immigration rights movement has fallen into two categories: non-existant or laughable. Laughable includes their much touted 'new columnist' who's written only one column and that one was laughable as he scolded young people from his middle-aged perch. We care about many issues. But for our offline time, we've decided to focus on two solely: Iraq and immigration rights. We take them both very seriously. There's been nothing to suggest that The Progressive does.
Maybe the Stephanie Miller interview that Rothschild can't stop praising is supposed to make up for the lack of coverage? We don't see how. Miller comes off like either an idiot or a lackey with her comments about how corporations only care about money and will air anything. (We'd suggest she and Rothschild both read Jeff Cohen's new book Cable News Confidential.)
As wit goes, she's hardly Kathy Griffith (though they do physically favor one another), let alone Dorothy Parker. But Rothschild's enthralled. Could it be because of the Barry Goldwater connection? He seems to operate from some need to signal to the right that, like Michael Jackson, "I'm not like other guys."
A little less signaling, a little less hand holding, a little less attempt to be the Readers Digest for The New York Times would make for a better magazine. But if the concern was truly a better magazine, 'reviews' of books that included statements such as "Klein's utterly entertaining" and "I can't help it though, I enjoy reading Klein" would be handed back to the author (Ruth Conniff) with the instructions that The Progressive does not exist to gush over the middle-of-the-road-on-the-right-hand-side-of-the-stripe Joe Klein. Additional notes might include telling Pal to research a story beyond what was written in The New York Times and telling Conniff that nobody likes an aging cheerleader.
While we await that day, consider Alan Maass' comments on Rothschild and others (CounterPunch) trashing the students and siding with the 'free speech' of the Minutemen:
Such arguments display both ignorance of what Gilchrist and the Minutemen represent, and disrespect for the historical commitment of the left to speak out against racism and oppression.
The issue of the Columbia protest has been framed as a narrow question of free speech--for Gilchrist only, it seems, not those who protested him--when the important issue is the responsibility of anyone who opposes racism not to let it go unchallenged.
Please note, we've yet to suggest a boycott of The Progressive. Were we too, we're sure Matthew Rothschild would have a radio commentary calling us "goons" and "shameful" and saying we were "gagging" him. That doesn't concern us. We're a little worried about his attempts to 'brand' his magazine and fearful that, in the process, he'd dub us "progressives." But mainly, we're just aware that most young people already boycott the magazine because it doesn't speak to them. Can't reach an audience you never cover and somehow, despite globe hopping like crazy from issue to issue, they can find time for hob knobbing with DC office holders and the Dahli Lama, they just can't get over their aversion to students and young Americans. Well, remember, Conniff lives in a community that's not-been-touched by the war in Iraq.
