ZINN, CHOMSKY AND ZIONISM

dan e said on January 29th, 2010 at 12:04pm #

Zinn does deserve high praise for his work and is definitely worth reading. However.
Long before Zinn came to prominence I’d encountered most of the history he reports in the works of earlier writers like WEB Dubois, Herbert Aptheker, Philip and Eric Foner, Charles & Mary Beard and others. Also I notice Zinn associated himself closely with the “semi-progressive” strain in recent US “left” politics, people like Amy Goodman & the “Z” publishing empire.
In my mind, there’s a parallel between the Great Man roles of Zinn and Noam Chomsky. Both are undoubtedly great writers, persons of great achievement, major figures on the US Left. But in Chomsky’s case also, before he came along I’d encountered the main facts about the “Isreal” problem in works by other writers such as Ralph Schoenman, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, Rabbi Elmer Berger, Israel Shahak, Lenni Brenner, Rashid Khalidi, Jeff Blankfort, Livia Rokach, Hilton Obenzinger, just to name a few.

Now if some Historian would come along and provide us with a comprehensive true history of the emergence of the Jewish Zionist power network as a major force in US politics and warmaking…


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Deadbeat said on January 29th, 2010 at 12:53pm #

I have to second DanE commentary. Zinn stood for a lot of the right things as does Chomsky but on the question of Zionism there was silence and/or that ethnocentrism that limits both these men from confronting this problem.

In addition, Zinn on the “moving train” in 2004 decided to back the “Anybody But Bush” / support Democratic candidate “John Kerry” / diffuse the anti-war movement anti-Nadar tactic (ABB). This “strategy” was supported by the Z-Mag crowd primarily due to the fact that other members in the anti-war movement started to shine a light on the influence of Zionism on the War on Iraq. The Z-Mag crew preferred the “War for Oil” canard which has been completely discredited and only shows that the Z-Mag crew chose deception and lies over confronting the truth.

The consequence of Zinn’s support for the ABB strategy helped not only to weaken the anti-war movement but placed the Left in an extremely weaken position for the 2008 election cycle which opened the door for Obama. In addition, the weak and divided condition of the Left creates a vacuum that is now being filled by right-wing populism. The Left today is too divided and does not have a coherent strategy to offer a real challenge to the Capitalist crisis and the political domination of Zionism.

Dan mentions WEB DuBios, now here’s a man who didn’t compromise his principles on the moving train.