Doug Ireland, Radical Journalist: 1946 – 2013

[marmar]

from truthdig:


Doug Ireland, Radical Journalist: 1946 – 2013

Posted on Oct 29, 2013
By Scott Tucker


Doug Ireland, gay liberationist and radical journalist, died in his East Village home in New York City on Oct. 26. He had survived two strokes, and in his last years also suffered from diabetes, kidney disease, sciatica and the long-term effects of childhood polio.

In 1963, at the age of 17, Ireland was elected to the National Council of Students for a Democratic Society, and became an assistant national secretary from 1963 to 1964. In 1966 he left SDS, and concentrated his activist work on the electoral wing of the anti-war movement. Ireland had begun his work in journalism at the New York Post. From the late 1970s until his death, he worked primarily as a political journalist for publications of the left, including The Nation and In These Times in the United States, and Liberation and Bakchich in France. He also wrote for The Village Voice, The New York Observer and New York magazine. In more recent years, he was a regular columnist for Gay City News in New York.

Ireland was not only a left-wing critic of sexual and political conformism among sectors of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movements, but he was also one of the notable public intellectuals of the civil libertarian left. Our paths crossed only three times, many years ago in the previous century. During his period of heavy drinking, I once visited his apartment and helped him fill trash bags with empty bottles and pizza boxes. The only time we had a truly free-ranging conversation in person was when he, Dennis Altman and I were weekend guests of Ethan Geto, staying on one of the Thimble Islands of Connecticut in a small cabin that had once been owned by Tom Thumb.

In the following years, we would exchange emails now and then on various subjects including AIDS activism and European politics. Neither of us ever ventured beyond the personal boundaries of the other, and we were never close friends. Even in the more impersonal realm of public events, our political alliances were somewhat testy and contingent. Both of us had joined activist groups of the left in our teens, and both of us were also active in the post-Stonewall gay movement on the East Coast. This is considerable common ground in politics, and we took care to highlight the overlapping segments of the Venn diagrams. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/doug_ireland_radical_journalist_1946_2013_20131029

[gopiscrap]

1. RIP

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. He used to write GREAT stuff for the Village Voice back in the eighties/nineties.

Too bad he's gone. great life, though.

Kick and Rec