Peretz Attacks Democratic Ticket

Martin H. Peretz, assistant professor of Social Studies, has spelled out his opposition to both the Democratic national ticket and "pop Maoists" in an article in the October 19 issue of The New Republic.

Peretz, who was co-chairman of the McCarthy national finance committee, called opponents of the war in Vietnam who are supporting Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey people who "have got to be where the action is, however high the cost."

Humphrey's Vietnam position, outlined in his September 30 television address, is "rank and unprincipled opportunism," Peretz wrote. Politicians who find it "quite enough to know that Humphrey would like to find some words to please them" illustrate "how cynical our political culture has become," the article said.

But Peretz does not see confrontation politics as an acceptable alternative. "Pop Maoists and revolutionaries," as well as President Johnson, are "authoritarian and politically manipulative," he wrote.

But most of the students who took part in "Tom Hayden's furtive conspiracy with history"--the Chicago demonstrations in August--probably did not share the beliefs of the "movement ultras," the article said. Thus, they might be induced to join "the cadres available for electoral politics," it continued.

With the defeat in Chicago of Senator Eugene J. McCarthy, the present has become "the worst of times," Peretz wrote. The left must begin the necessary, although "dreary," work of organization building and political education, he concluded.