EDITOR'S NOTE
Rothschild, Matthew
EDITOR'S NOTE Matthew Rothschild A Find, A Spat, A Slip David Barsamian is a one-man operation. As host of the program Alternative Radio, he tirelessly produces shows of great interest to those...
...as Auden puts it...
...He's done nothing to distribute a peace dividend...
...On issue after issue, from welfare to crime to immigration to civil liberties to international trade and the environment, Clinton has pushed policies to the right of Richard Nixon...
...Many people I respect tell me that I have an obligation to support Clinton...
...They argue that the alternatives are too ugly to contemplate, and that people will suffer if Clinton doesn't win...
...I've already apologized to June,win was more than gracious...
...Please cancel my subscription...
...If we do not, the debate will continue to lurch ever rightward, and the circulation of leftwing ideas will clog up even further...
...We need to tn something else...
...I was so taken by the urgency of Chomsky's comments in these days of Republican devolution that I asked Barsamian and Chomsky for permission to excerpt from the interview...
...I'm not a great proofreader...
...He wrote me the following note on January 23: Dear Mr...
...or the balanced-budget foolishness he now advances...
...What issues has Clinton stood up for He's been supine on AIDS, and hasor-dered the Administration not to rescind the ban on handing out needles to preveni the spread of HIV, even though his own studies have demonstrated that needle en-change saves lives...
...You wouldn't be able to feel so righteous...
...I won't be able to share it with Robert Burns of Montello, Wisconsin, however...
...They both readily agreed, so I'm delighted to be able to share the excerpt with you...
...Dear Robert Burns: Sorry to lose you, but having just heard Clinton's State of the Union, I believe the difference between him and traditional Republicans could fit in a thimble...
...But people are suffering now...
...A little while ago, David mailed me a transcript of his latest interview with Noam Chomsky (Barsamian is Chomsky's Boswell), and I sat down to write David a polite thank-you note...
...It's exactly that time...
...That's why the other editors here proofread along with me, and that's why we've enlisted font outside proofreaders to help us...
...But I remain convinced that we need to offer up leftwing alternatives to the Democrats...
...I'm grateful to him because whenever he finishes a tape, he's kind enough to send me a cassette or a transcript...
...Since I gave heart and soul to that enterprise last time, I have nothing left to give this time, and The been completely disconnected from it...
...For some technological reason that is beyond my Luddite capaciij to comprehend, the last line of June Jo'' dan's column was cut off, marringth meaning of her essay...
...Last month, a serious error crept in that was not the fault of the proofreadefl or the editors, for that matter...
...And they're suffering now because there's been no progressive alternative to the welfare-reform nonsense Clinton kicked off, or the death-penalty bills he not only signed but brags about, or the anti-immigration policy he has now endorsed, or NAFTA and GATT...
...He deals at some length with moves by Ralph Nader to allow his name to be placed on the Green Party ticket for President in the California primaries anil perhaps elsewhere...
...We've tried the tactic of working within the Democratic Party...
...You Clinton-bashers would probably be disappointed if you had only a President Grumm or a President Buchanan to kick around...
...But as I read through the transcript...
...As it is, we're already in need of angioplasty...
...It occurred at a post-proofing stage, when the imaging company was prepping the compel files for printing...
...I now apologia to vou.M...
...After reading many drafts of the stories wt publish, I tend to lose my focus when it comes to page proofs...
...Rothschild, I've had it...
...No refund necessary...
...I value every subscriber, and I wish we had ten times as many as we do, but I was not in the mood to placate...
...Tbere really is no excuse for typographical enors in a monthly, but we're human and "arc articled to error...
...In the interest of full disclosure, let me acknowledge that in my off hours I wasco-treasurer of an effort to draft Ralph Nader for President in 1992...
...Just because the Republicans have moved even further to the right does not require me to clap for Clinton...
...that's what got us Bill Clinton...
...In fact, his seven-year budget spends more for the Pentagon in the out years than does the Republican budget...
...In this issue, John Nichols once again goes in search of a leftwing challenger to Clinton...
...The whole last pan-graph should have read: And for myself, and for the rest of& I'm thinking, like he said: "It's ourM^ kick in...
...We continue our Clinton-bashing in our Comment section this month...
...As host of the program Alternative Radio, he tirelessly produces shows of great interest to those of us on the left...
Vol. 60 • March 1996 • No. 3
