Your Favorite Lefty Writer

[UdoKier]

Your Favorite Lefty Writer

[ibegurpard]

1. Oh, come on!

No fair!

[UdoKier]

2. Key word is lefty.

If you only love Twain for his prose, you needn't put Twain.

It's from the standpoint of being a lefty, not simply a writer. As a writer, Twain is best hands down, but as a lefty, I personally like the persective of Studs Terkel.

I thought Twain might be a good choice for thouse who don't read a lot of political/intellectual screeds.

[ibegurpard]

6. Well, I'd have to say Molly

for her ability to highlight complex issues and put a folksy and accessible spin on them.

[MaryH]

16. Molly is my favorite, too

[TaleWgnDg]

3. yeah . . . a lousy selection . . .

and, btw, why haven't you read Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s book "Crimes Against Nature?" I highly recommend it.


===================================
"The anti-environment agenda of today's White House was
honed and perfected during Bush's gubernatorial years. It
was in Texas that he developed the tactics and policies that
guide his autocratic leadership today: closed-door meetings
with industry insiders who are among his biggest campaign
contributors; reliance on pseudo-scientific 'studies' by right
wing think tanks; emasculation of regulations that cut into
industry profits; citizens muzzled in debates that affect their
communities.

"Soon after becoming governor, Bush declared tort reform
an 'emergency issue' and appointed judges who made it all
but impossible for Texans to bring class action lawsuits against
polluters. In 1995 he pushed through the Private Real Property
Rights Preservation Act, a radical 'takings' bill that would make
taxpayers pay polluters' cost of complying with pollution laws.
According to this view, corporations should be able to do what
they want with their private property; if the state cuts into their
profits by forcing them to adopt pollution-control measures, the
state (i.e., the public) should pay. This perverse doctrine reverses
a millennium of western property law that holds that owners can
use their property as the please, but never in a way that diminishes
their neighbors' property or the public trust properties like air and water. Leading the charge for this radical new approach was
right-wing private-property advocate Marshall Kuykendall, who
complained at a public forum that the last time the federal
government took our property without compensation is 'when Lincoln freed the slaves.' "
-- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., "Crimes Against Nature"
===================================

[Bridget Burke]

4. Federico Garcia Lorca

Plus his friend Pablo Neruda (who wrote some fine prose as well as the poetry for which he won the Nobel prize).

Eduardo Galeano's "Memory of Fire" trilogy is a fine overview of hemispheric history (art as well as politics). His "Soccer in Sun & Shadow" is a history of the World Cup--with political background.

Paco Ignacio Taibo II, born in Spain to radicals who fled to Mexico, is a historian. But he's also written delightful detective novels that do not hide his political beliefs. His biography of Che was quite fine.

[maveric]

5. Jack Kerouac

"On The Road" inspired me.

[IrateCitizen]

29. I loved Kerouac's work too, but he was a RWer late in life

From what I have read, he became a real asshole after he became famous. Kurt Vonnegut had a good account of his sole encounter with Kerouac, toward the end of Kerouac's life, in which Jack tried to start a fight with Vonnegut's son in Vonnegut's house.

I've also read that he was very supportive of Nixon right before he died.

[JI7]

7. you should do one for non fiction and fiction, and where is Krugman ?

[JSJ]

8. hunter s, dalton trumbo, bud shultz, john berger, w. grieder, naomi klein

[althecat]

9. Greg Palast, DUs own William Pitt and Arundhati Roy

[Speed8098]

10. You forgot one

Al Franken.

[Blue Gardener]

11. Al Franken n/t

[Cats Against Frist]

12. Rousseau? :)

[morgan2]

13. other

you forgot to put the 12 apostles, or whoever you want to credit with actually writting the bible. The life of Jesus Christ is about as lefty as it gets.

[Minstrel Boy]

14. Vidal

Not only is his prose the most elegant but Vidal, better than most, frames America's trip to Hell under Bush in the historical context of the end of the Republic and the rise of the National Security State.

[Laughing Mirror]

33. Without question

Gore always gives credit to Charles Beard or John Jay Chapman as being America's greatest historians, but in my lifetime nobody even comes close to Gore, and I've been reading him for 35 years.

[IrateCitizen]

15. Where's Kurt Vonnegut?

Seriously, I never would have engaged myself in studying "alternative" US history had it not been for the messages in his fictional works. And reading the interviews with him are REALLY fascinating. He's the one who introduced me to the wonderful legacy of Eugene V. Debs.

[NoPasaran]

17. Orwell

[in_cog_ni_to]

18. William Rivers Pitt.

:hi:

[Ravenseye]

19. Paul Krugman

He's not just some schlub he's an economics professor.

I love Michael Mooore's films, but lets be honest. I'll believe the squirmy little tweed wearing Princeton economisist on this stuff.

[Butterflies]

21. I choose Paul Krugman too. I never miss his colomns.

[kaitykaity]

20. Krugman because he is the

most relevant and most effective. "It's the
economy, stupid."

[chiburb]

22. Other: Plaid Adder, Will Pitt, Barb O'Brien (Maha) n/t

[el_gato]

23. Ward Churchill

[Darranar]

24. Zinn and Palast. n/t

[rhite5]

25. Krugman -- timely, accessable and authoritative

[htuttle]

26. Arundhati Roy

I like all the others, but Arundhati Roy's work is like a breath of fresh air to me.

[coalition_unwilling]

27. Arundhati Roy (winner of Booker prize)

She's also helped me keep my sanity during these dark hours.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

28. Leo Tolstoy. The greatest novelist, ever.

"War and Peace" should qualify him as the best anti-war, anti-wealth, pro-people author. Not to mention his other writings in favor of anarchism (not "anarchy" for those who don't understand anarchism).

Joe Heller for Catch-22 would be my second choice.

[robbedvoter]

32. Tolstoi was an aristocrat who abused his wife, hated women and was

quite reactionary on a number of things.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

35. Perhaps, but the question was about his writing.

Which is the finest ever put on paper. Tolstoy may have been an aristocrat, but his writings attack the aristocracy and oligarchy throughout. Reactionary? I don't think so. Try "Resurrection" to see about his "hatred of women" and his feelings about the aristocracy.

He may have beat his wife (I don't know about that) but that's kind of like saying that Picasso was a lousy artist because he womanized or that Pablo Neruda wasn't really a leftist poet because he wrote so much about love and sex.

[RichardRay]

30. Ivins from the names listed, and

I was thinking about Krugman, too. But I'm not sure I'd call him a 'lefty', he's just honest, rigorous, well educated and a good writer. As an economist with his background he's probably more centrist politically.

Richard Ray - Jackson Hole, WY

[SOS]

31. Voted for Gore Vidal

Lewis Lapham #2.

[Jack_Dawson]

34. Maureen Dowd

[Lori Price CLG]

36. Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D.

Michael Rectenwald is my favorite 'Lefty' writer.
http://legitgov.org/mikerectenwald_writings_101501.html


Lori Price

[FredScuttle]

37. Mark Crispin Miller

personal bias here....he was my media professor at Johns Hopkins many years ago.

[proud patriot]

38. Vidal

:D