THE PLANK AUGUST 31, 2007
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Over at Andrew Sullivan's place, Jamie Kirchick laments the decline of the "anti-totalitarian left" and claims that the U.S. labor movement has abandoned its counterparts in Iraq:
Whereas once the AFL-CIO had a large and effective international office, you'd be hard-pressed to hear, for instance, what they're doing for Iraqi trade-unionists.
But hang on, you'd only be "hard-pressed" if you didn't have access to Google. Just this past March, John Sweeney brokered a meeting between "17 top leaders from five Iraqi trade union federations" and the financial institutions working in Iraq. The AFL-CIO has been one of the few places tracking worker abuses in the country. Its Solidarity Center has been holding training workshops for Iraqi workers, pushing women's rights, and "connect[ing] Iraqi trade unions with their counterparts throughout the region." And so on. Now, the AFL-CIO has always been a fairly conservative group, and I don't agree with everything they did during the cold war (e.g.), but it's wrong to suggest that they've been ignoring Iraq.
On the other hand, as Matthew Harwood reported in 2005, those "idealists" in the Bush administration's CPA were so intent on privatization during their first few years in Iraq that they really did push aside--and were often hostile toward--Iraqi labor groups, which were one of the few dedicated anti-insurgent, anti-Baathist organizations in the country.
--Bradford Plumer
12 comments
Silly Brad, you should know that Jaime isn't going to let some trifling detail like "facts" get in the way of a perfectly good attack on his liberal hobglobbin of the day.
- mundye
August 31, 2007 at 1:03pm
The sad thing is, he seems to be bright and talented. I think he's a little young to be taking on the role of crotchety demagogue, but that seems to be exactly what he's doing. I blame Marty Peretz. I really see two Jaimie Kirchicks - one who has something to say and a decent amount of facility with the tools for saying it, and one who has an ossified ideological viewpoint in search of confirmation. The quality of his writing seems to vary inversely with how much he is serving his ideological side.
- jblumenfeld
August 31, 2007 at 1:18pm
Can he stay over at Sullivan's blog? Please?
- adamvaught
August 31, 2007 at 1:20pm
No Way!!! At the very least he needs to be someplace with a comments section. The only thing that makes him bearable when gets going is getting to read the flaming Talkback.
- jblumenfeld
August 31, 2007 at 1:24pm
Let mini stay over with Sullivan...I was wondering how we got so lucky as to not have him polluting the Plank over the past few weeks. Now I know and I say good for mini, good for Sullivan...and Sullivan can keep him.
- MrCookie1
August 31, 2007 at 2:25pm
I too read Sullivan alot and while Andrew sometimes drives me nuts he does not deserve to suffer Jaime forever.
- awrobi01
August 31, 2007 at 4:49pm
poor, poor mini-me. is there no one to stick up for him...anybody? ....his mother? oh poor, poor mini
- blackton
August 31, 2007 at 5:18pm
Hilzoy responds to all the Kirchick inanity on Andrew Sullivan's blog with a few questions for Kirchick:
Given the amount of crap Kirchick has written on The Plank over the last year Hilzoy's questions seem long overdue. It is unfortunate that his co-host on another blog made them rather than one of his co-hosts on The Plank.
- ndmackenzie
August 31, 2007 at 7:13pm
I was going to describe what is happening to Kirchick over at the dish as "a richly deserved spanking."
- jblumenfeld
August 31, 2007 at 9:27pm
Steve Clemons lit into him too, and Greg Djerejian took him to task in an earlier post about Iran. It's like a bloc of WTF? in response to him over there.
- jpagano
September 1, 2007 at 1:18am
The Boston Red Sox traded a perfectly good curveball pitcher named Bronson Arroyo for a very large, powerful outfielder named Wily Mo Pena (pronounced Penya). Unfortunately, it turned out that while Wily Mo was an absolute plumber in the field, he could not hit a curve ball, which soon enough was all he was seeing at the plate. Now what, I suppose you are wondering, does this have to do with James Kirchick? This: if you prematurely elevate a minor league player to the major leagues, it will be a disaster for all concerned. Neither Wily Mo nor James were ready for prime time. Maybe they never would be, or maybe they could grow into competent professionals if allowed to ripen in the minors. THe Red Sox ultimately traded Wily Mo to the Washington Nationals, almost a minor league team. When will TNR similarly end their failed experiment?
- JackR
September 1, 2007 at 9:42am
If only the opinions of readers here actually mattered as much as curveballs in Boston. No such luck, I'm afraid. Bush will rid himself of Cheney AND Maliki before TNR will respond to this obvious problem.
- purcellneil
September 4, 2007 at 10:50am