(9:15 AM) | Adam Kotsko:

I Recommend the Following

• Mark Kaplan has done a couple posts (1, 2) on political function of the conflation of "left" and "liberal":

  The left began precisely in antagonism to liberalism, as an interrogation of its assumptions. To yoke ‘left’ and ‘liberal’ together is a category error, but a politically motivated one. The hyphen anticipates their eventual conflation, the elision of the distinction between them. They are compressed into a false unity. It is as if 'the left' is now only those aspects of it continuous with Liberalism. The excremental remainder, which is to say, from our point of view, the very essence of the Left, is discarded, pushed off the spectrum altogether. 'Left-liberal' is a device whcih shrinks the political spectrum, illegitimately contracts the ‘left’ into an alliance with its historical adversary, and restricts political struggle to pragmatic positions within capitalism. Indeed, one’s stance with regard to this last (the very system within which we live) is henceforth off limits.

  
  
• Gorss is off to a good start at Cap'n Pete/Antistrophe/Take Me To Coney Island.
  
• Slacktivist asks, "What is Bush wins?"
  
• Abraham Lincoln was gay (link via Political Theory).
  
• Vote or die.
  
• Daniel Green continues his series on the biographical fallacy in the popular "literary" press.
  
• Jonathan Schwartz discusses his hatred for bin Laden.
  
• The Young Hegelian wonders whether bin Laden's tape is being deliberately misunderstood because people don't want to admit that it "is not the irrationally fanatical discourse we want to ascribe to this man," while Crooked Timber commenters take Juan Cole to task for suggesting that bin Laden is anything but a pure nihilist. One commenter does point out something interesting: the liberal blogosphere does seem to regard Juan Cole as a kind of oracle.
  
• Bob Harris, formerly a long-term guest blogger at Tom Tomorrow's site, now has his own blog.

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