Rothstein is the culture critic for the NY Times and in assessing the work of the late Studs Terkel, he comes across just like one of the radio gasbags who prattle on about Obama's "socialism" or "communism." Here are the incriminating excerpts:
This vision of work, though, is an obvious translation of a traditional Marxist view of the alienation of labor — the sense of disassociation that comes from the capitalist workplace. The most transformative accomplishment would be to recognize the causes of that alienation, because that would help usher in a new world; this is what Mr. Terkel seems to cherish in his most admired laborers and what he hopes to accomplish in the book itself.
Part of Mr. Terkel’s wide appeal was that he seemed to be a scrappy liberal in his choice of causes and concerns, but look more closely and it becomes less clear where his liberalism slips into radicalism. Though Mr. Terkel was not a theorist, nearly every one of the positions approvingly intimated by him seem to fit models shaped by Marxist theory; he even wore something red every day to affirm his attachment to the working class.
WOW! Terkel wore something red!!! OMG!
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