But if the alternative is Eric Mann, Podhoretz's transformation becomes a lot more understandable if not forgiveable.
Like Podhoretz, Mann hails from Brooklyn, was a Red Diaper baby, is well over-sixty and Jewish. Mann has decided that no one can better speak for Black America than a White Jew and he made that decision many, many years ago.
In October of 1993, when race riots were feared in Los Angeles, Robert Siegel and All Things Considered (NPR) just knew the best voice to represent Black America was . . . White Eric Mann. And attention hog Mann didn't have the grace or good sense to say, "Hey, maybe you should book a Black person for this segment?" If you're confused as to who Eric Mann is, substitute another nobody for him: He's Danny Schechter 100 pounds lighter.
(Eric Mann pictured above? No, it's his soul-twin Peter from Family Guy.)
It is White people like Mann, still living in the 50s, who keep Black people down within the media by repeatedly attempting to speak for them. It's a form of a racism to think you, a non-Black, can speak better to the needs of Black people than a person who actually is Black.
Eric Mann isn't a face you'll see on TV -- thankfully. (But we're sure Amy Goodman's speed dialing him right now and extolling the virtues of her public access cable show.) There are people who don't have anything to contribute.
Mann likes to list The Boston Globe in his credits but doesn't note that the paper fired him. They tired of his observations as well. (He and Howard Zinn were both columnists for the paper for one year.) When talking about some of the horrors we on the left have to endure via the media and, specifically, the 'voices' that represent us, we wondered if there were any voices we were glad didn't represent us on TV? Immediately, we all thought of Mann.
Dislike for Mann is quickly becoming near universal judging by the month of May when KPFK did so much better in the Tuesday 4:00 pm time slot with "special programming" instead of Mann's program which mainly exists to demonstrate that he can't say "stay" ("say tuned," he slurs) and that he can't stop smacking his lips into the microphone.
Along with his own vanity, there are other reasons the program exists. Since 2009, it exists largely to excuse away Barack Obama. When Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House, how Mann could rage, how he could thunder.
Instead, even on a topic like blasting the tops off mountains, Mann speaks softly and with regret, sprinkling words like "unfortunately" to describe Barack's policies.
That's surprising only if you didn't know that Eric Mann was part of the Cult of St. Barack.
Eric Mann provided "10 Reasons For Obama Vote" (different titles appeared at different websites) which continued his insistence that all opposed to Barack Obama were racists. Interestingly, in an end note, he noted that he refused to work for Cynthia McKinney's campaign. For the record, Cynthia was the only Black candidate for president. Barack is bi-racial. But the over-60, Red Diaper Baby, Brooklyn Jew is notorious for sexism. A vote for Bambi was a vote against racism. Apparently, in Mann's book, the better "Black" is the one who is half-White.
Mann saw racism everywhere, a bit like McCarthy spotting Communism in earlier times.
Mann attended an indoctrination camp on Long Beach, he confessed, and the reasons for voting for Barack cited there include? "He is the most qualified Black man." Huh? He's not Black but was there a Black man in the race? No, just a Black woman and, again, these types don't like women. Other reasons included that Barack "is so intelligent" and "Because I want my children to see we can elect a Black president." On the latter, then you should have supported Cynthia McKinney in 2008 if that was your main reasoning.
In his bad writing, he comes off like Peter (Family Guy) speaking to a large group of Black men about 'the struggle' and telling them he was there when various TV moments took place ("I was there when Tootie got those painful braces."). Excerpt of Mann:
I was also there when John F. Kennedy moved to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs and tried to assassinate Castro. I was there when Lyndon B. Johnson initiated and then tried to disband the poverty programs, when Johnson escalated a genocidal war in Vietnam. These actions by Kennedy and Johnson led to more protests, not less. They led to the emergence of some very principled left liberal Democrats, and the radicalization of many formerly Democratic liberal students who came to see that more radical, structural, revolutionary change was needed.
[. . .]
Ask Glen Ford if he sees a wave of people of color standing up to the police state or, for that matter, calling out the illegal Libyan War Barack just started. It hasn't happened. He's gotten one pass after another while expanding the empire. Among those making excuses and handing out passes? Eric Mann.
" When the election is over," hypocrite Eric Mann wrote, "whether Obama is elected or McCain, we all have to work together in a broad united front against the war in Iraq and racism at home."
That may have been the last time Eric Mann noted the Iraq War. Since Barack was sworn in, he's led no protest, he's written no demands for the war to end. He's done nothing. He's the perfect accessory for the faux left, showy, leathered and dysfunctional.
Eric Mann likes to speak out against White skin privilege . . . but he's yet to realize his tired ass (does no one on the faux left ever retire?) yammering away about second-hand observations of racism prevent someone who actually knows about racism from being heard. He should surrender the mike and, if he won't go willingly, KPFK should have the courage to replace him. For now, just be glad he's not on TV.
