Ramparts Gallantly Streaming

Ramparts Magazine shouldn't get any other reputation, other than the consensus that it was a serious magazine that wrote serious stories. In its 13 year lifespan, Ramparts caused a fair amount of controversy and managed to raise more than a few eyebrows, but it wasn't purely about creating a buzz. It was born in the Bay Area and was originally created as a Catholic literary quarterly, but blatantly pushed the New Left agenda at the time of strong, clear opposition of the Vietnam war and arguably failing, religiously oriented Right Wing ideologies. And it looked good too.

In his recent New York Times book review, writer Dwight Garner mentions that Ramparts "was printed on glossy stock and, rare for an alternative magazine, had national distribution."

But then points out "Ramparts’ politics were grainy, shifty, hard to define. The magazine spent so much time savaging the liberal consensus in its editorials, Mr. Richardson suggests, that it afflicted conservatism less than it should have."

Peter Richardson, author of A Bomb In Every Issue, a new concise overview of Ramparts history and purpose, says that the magazine "had this Bay Area irreverence." And contrary to what some writers are saying about Ramparts being in the same conversation as other underground publications of the same time such as The Berkeley Burb, "it was not an underground publication. In fact it was quite the opposite," says Richardson. "It was off the ground."

Ramparts was founded by Edward M. Keating and over the years, had a great number of well known contributors including Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky, and Cesar Chavez.

And as far as Garner's argument that Richardson's book had very little on the "history of America’s alternative, rabble-rousing press, from Tom Paine’s days through our own," Ramparts was prominent, influential, and a publication part of an entirely different era. How could it possibly be compared to the writing of Paine's days?

"Tom paine? That's from the colonial era!," says Richardson. "I can't join him on that one." Neither can I.

Today, I wish we could watch more Ramparts that are so gallantly streaming... right now in the media and on the news stands.