Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Your Tadjik story kinda reminds me of the Darfur People. I've never seen an "issue" so loudly howled about by so many people being so totally ignored. They popped up at the last big antiwar mobe I attended, back in '07 -- they were the numpties carrying the mass-printed placards bearing a little "Working Assets" logo and reading Out Of Iraq, Into Darfur.

Lately, I've been thinking of adding a little Greek-chorus-style figure in the lower corners of my cartoons, a la Oliphant's penguin -- no matter what issue the cartoon's about, there'd be a frantic little figure in the lower corner shrieking, "What about DARFUR?"

You're absolutely right Mike. The Darfur movement is the perfect example of the ability of people to ignore what's in front of their faces. The Save Darfur folks talk about hundreds of thousands dead and displaced, and yet they ignore the same carnage going on in Iraq. If any of those people had a shred intelligence, they'd look at the results of the US in 'humanitarian interventions' and start shopping around.

And Darfur is the problem which should be easiest to suss out, because most of the players are forthright and/or obvious: the gummint in Khartoum wants to make sure the Chinese oil concessions are safe. The rebels are funded by Israel, the Brits and the US, and based out of Chad. They would give Darfurian concessions to, you guessed it, not-the-Chinese. Everyone in Darfur is both black and Muslim. "Arab v. African", as sold to Americans by a lazy corporate press, can be shown for what it really means with a single browsers search. De Waal did all the hard work on this years ago: The "Arabs" are black and Muslim, but are loyal to Khartoum and likely to use Arabic as a koine. The "Africans" are also black and Muslim, but have tribal loyalties and a tendency to speak Arabic and tribal languages.

... "The Tadjiks?" I stammered. ...

Ignorance of the Tadjiks is evidence of anti-semitism?

Chomsky baldly defended the Israeli kibbutz movement as one of the most interesting examples of "left-wing libtertarianism" almost a quarter century after participating in it himself:

The kibbutz where we lived, which was about twenty years old, was then very poor. There was very little food, and work was hard. But I liked it very much in many ways. Abstracting it from context, this was a functioning and very successful libertarian community, so I felt. And I felt it would be possible to find some mixture of intellectual and physical work. I came close to returning there to live, as my wife very much wanted to do at the time.

Incidentally, this is a standard trope in the usually nostalgic writings on the "lost idealism" of the founders of an exclusively Jewish state (or even those opposed to the state on ideological grounds):

http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/the_receiving_end_of_our_dreams

Chomsky baldly defended the Israeli kibbutz movement as one of the most interesting examples of "left-wing libtertarianism" almost a quarter century after participating in it himself:

The kibbutz where we lived, which was about twenty years old, was then very poor. There was very little food, and work was hard. But I liked it very much in many ways. Abstracting it from context, this was a functioning and very successful libertarian community, so I felt. And I felt it would be possible to find some mixture of intellectual and physical work. I came close to returning there to live, as my wife very much wanted to do at the time.

Incidentally, the invisibility of people around the settler is a standard trope in usually nostalgic writings on the "lost idealism" of the founders of an exclusively Jewish state—or even those opposed to the state on ideological grounds—who remained willfully blind to the presence of hundreds of thousands of "natives":

In his seminal book Expulsion of the Palestinians, Palestinian scholar Nur Masalha writes of Israel Zangwill‚ whose infamous slogan "a land without a people for a people without a land" that it was not intended as a literal demographic assessment: "[Zionists] did not mean that there were no people in Palestine, but that there were no people worth considering within the framework of the notions of European supremacy that then held sway".

War, genocide, racism, oppression are everywhere. From the Roma in Italy to the Native-Americans in the U.S., the weak are victimized. Why pick on Israel? It's the way of the world.

God I get so sick of all the stories about Israel and shit.

It's as if the whole world ignores everything going on everywhere on the planet just so they can fucking go on and on and on and on and on and on ad infinitum about what goes on in Israel.

I don't give a shit, at least not more than anything else relative to the whole planet. Does that make me an anti-semite?

I'm guessing yes.

oops, double posting because of très grande vitesse moderation. Here's a nice little exchange inspired by the "left’s hypocrisy" when it comes to Tibet (or Aceh, Chechnya, Colombia, Haiti,...) vis-a-vis Palestine.

Also, the Chomsky interview excerpt above dates from '83, not late 80's which is another interview in which he offers a nice account of hasbara and the utility of the kibbutz to it.

"I don't give a shit, at least not more than anything else relative to the whole planet."

I apologize for saying this. It's this blog and it's owner's choice for what they prefer to talk about and it ain't none of my goddamn business. I was being presumptuous.

I'm like that sometimes, I'm sorry.

God I get so sick of all the stories about Israel and shit.

I almost always see it spelled "Tajik."

Chomsky has sadly continued in this vein.

Last October I heard him trying to explain to a bewildered young Israeli from Anarchists Against the Wall that BDS should not be promoted because of the obvious hypocrisy of only boycotting Israel. When the guy said "but Palestinian civil society wants this," Chomsky said something that could be loosely paraphrased as "what if the Palestinians wanted to jump off a bridge?"

It was disappointing to hear.

"Understandable. Alas, ignoring it won't make it go away. So one does what little one can."

Yeah, I know. I was just being a dick.

In many ways, Chomsky is one of Israel's most effective apologists. No one with a lick of sanity takes Dearth o' wits seriously. But when Chomsky holds forth on any subject, many on the Left take it as gospel.

There is no one size fits all propaganda. For the truly gullible, a Pastor Hagee type assuring his followers that God created America to protect Israel is sufficient. For sophisticated thinkers on the Left who despise Israel and America, you need a Chomsky to convince them that America created Israel to protect America. Blame shifting from Israel to America is a remarkably easy sell to this crowd, but one that helps to shield Zionist power in the US and Western Europe from investigation.

Combine this with his support for lesser evilism, and even his much-praised and accurate criticisms of the US fade away into oblivion. What good is it to educate people on the evils of the empire if you then lead them to embrace one of the worst horsemen of our particular Apocalypse while ignoring the other?

Hmmmm. Chomsky is sometimes guilty of whatabouttery, as the Brits call it, but it usually tends to be fairly relevant whatabouttery from a progressive standpoint; I don't think he ever says "What about the suffering Zimbabweans?" simply to change the subject. Which is rather different.

No, I also don't think that Chomsky (who, let's face it, is getting pretty old now -- I'm talking about his output between the 1960s and the early part of this century) is a big defender of Israel. You'd have to ignore a very, very large part of his output to believe that. He is a critic of U.S. imperialism who also criticises Israeli policy, and who considers that the two are connected, insofar as he believes that the U.S. supports Israel predominantly (at least since 1967) out of desire to use it as a source of local force to terrorise and intimidate the oil-rich countries of the region.

Now, you may disagree with that, or argue that he understates the role of Israeli crimes. I'm not so sure that this is true (it's quite clear that South African crimes in southern Africa were green-lighted by the U.S. for its own purposes; does that make the South African crimes less heinous?). But then, one of his objectives is to argue that the U.S.'s criminality is predominantly understandable in terms of the national interest (to quote the title of one of his earlier books). He does, for instance, point out that when Israel does stuff which pisses off the Pentagon, such as selling high-tech weaponry to China, the deal suddenly gets unexpectedly scrubbed.

So I think you're oversimplifying his arguments in an unhelpful way. Sorry.

Creator is right of course that Chomsky has had lots of good stuff to say about Israel. On balance I think his contribution on the subject has been a lot more positive than otherwise. Where I disagree with him -- a thing I hate to do -- is on his view of the relationship between the US and Israel, which I think is one-dimensional and oversimplified, and of course on the BDS stuff. I love boycotts.

The social formation that we refer to, not altogether felicitously, as the Israel Lobby, here in the US and in Europe, plus the Israeli elite proper, constitute, taken together, a relatively compact and well-organized faction of the global elite with its own aspirations to power and influence. We need a better term than Israel Lobby for this superset; I'm going to suggest the intentionally inflammatory Israel Axis. The Israeli state is in a
sense just the armed wing, tribal fetish, and political fulcrum of the Israel Axis.

Such a staunch critic of Israel and its policies that he spent a lifetime employed by a weapons contractor whose research benefited those Israeli and US policies.

Oops.

Yeah, some hero.

If you can't see your hero's flaws, you're as much a part of the problem as the "simpletons" you pretend to expose or criticize.

Yeah, it's "more nuanced."

/rolleyes

Drunk punchbowl
Has my take

Left...real anti empire left
Shut up about fort Zion
It's today's fort apache

Better it's today's Mormon Utah free state plus a fort apache full of Mormons
Made into mermidons of uncle S

how to be even handed about the various rings of imperial fire
The various Iroquois Huron wars on the frontier

the various local white elite settler states
matured into smooth comprador ops
Ie white supremacy
In the

Implicit function form
by generations of eurorule

Got cut off by my I pad....

so I agree Noam is off base on the boycott
If I understand his cavel it is indeed the idiotic Tajik parry

But I'm unrelenting the Zionist project far from being the business end of some axis
Of elders
Is a simple us mini me that plays us but in the end
knows damn well who runs the planet
and it's not the troop of mice with a blue star of David
on their lilly white asses

I hasten to add

The settler euro Jew of 1940 ish
Were a multinational caste product unlike the Mormons of 1840i ish

to the extent non euro Jews
Are now amalgamated into the settler mix at fort Zion
Doesn't change the basic hue and cry one iota

In fact the adopted kids are often the most ardent promoters
Of the
"for the good of the "family" line .....eh?

Strike your blows against uncle hegemonic

Btw mjs was well aware of the Tajik oppression in 80-82

his astonishment was at the unanticipated self confident
Strident idiocy of the "thrust"

The Tajiks a nation I'm particularly fond of
To this day find themselves partitioned ie
dismembered dis organized and dispersed
by the great game machiavellis thundering thru their homelands
For centuries now

Like the and Tibetans Uyghurs etc they find themselves
In a vortex created by great nations in contention

Tough luck

Clio is a bitch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Samanid_dynasty_(819–999).GIF

Glory days

Op, perhaps you can add a couplet on cruelty of fate when grad students start outsmarting their former mentor who once was a trailblazer himself, yet now trots out syllogisms that were out of joint even in time gone by.

Sk may I say
You are without peer on the left fort Zion siege

Your ladders clearly hook into the top of the walls

I hardly find that unworth while when it's as refined and expansive
But one must ask how many walking thinking talking writing treasures like you do we need on the zionic mini monsters

I'll take you on the ark
But I need an sk for every uncle hegemonic set circle of fire

is-pal is but one such circle out of well...hundreds

Where's the sk of the Tajik impasse

Owen, you've gotta lose the ipad.

One of the interesting things about Chomsky, for me, is that the angle from which he approaches things couldn't be more different from my own. (I'm talking about politics here, not the linguistics; that's another story.) Yet I probably would agree wholeheartedly with about 99% of what Chomsky has ever written. Isn't there some kind of useful inference to be drawn from this?

Op, I'll let Chomsky himself have the last word as to why specializing on Palestine might be more worthwhile for an inhabitant of North America than, say, worrying about the historic mistreatment of Caucasian peoples at the hands of Russians.

MJS, here's a useful inference (not that it applies to you as you remain admirably free of such a conceit): holier-than-thou sectarianism—as shown by some posts here and as also displayed on a regular basis in the work of some bloggers you recently mentioned—is a bitch.

MJS: how is his angle different from yours?

Any two-bit hustler or lady's man knows that to win the trust and confidence of his mark, he has to agree with the mark's worldview and beliefs.

To this end Chomsky engages in a complicated game of yes-buttery:

Yes, Israel is a terrorist state, but the US forces Israel's hand in order to advance its own interests.
Yes, there is a Zionist lobby, but it is no more powerful than any other lobby.
Yes, we should support the Palestinians, but BDS is bad for them.
Yes, I am a Zionist, but I never changed, Zionism did.
Yes, my imaginary version of Zionism allegedly favored forcing an equal, binational state on the Palestinians rather than a Jewish state, but no, I am opposed to the one-state solution as it will never work and will only destroy Israel.
Yes, Israel has never honored a single agreement with the Palestinians, but Arafat should have taken the deal he was offered as it was the best the Palestinians can ever hope for.
Yes, the Democratic Party sucks, but over time, there has been enough of a marginal difference between the two parties to justify voting Dem.

What makes Chomsky effective as an apologist is that his criticisms of Israel and the US buy him the credibility needed to successfully convince many on the Left of these fictions.

Even people like Ali Abunimah take the Chomskyian line that it is the US that controls Israel, and not vice-versa.

Constantly putting the focus on Israel can serve as an effective distraction from the real source of Israel's power, which is its lobby, organized Jewish groups and rent-boy politicians in the US.

It isn't the 95 percent that's true you need to look at with Chomsky, but that critical 5 percent that isn't.

Oughta be some serious invertebrate-like displays of bending over backward to defend Defense Contractor Employee Chomsky after that legitimate book of gripes offered by Sean.

What a strange thing, the way Chomsky is treated as if a superman, as if he has no flaws, as if his views are perfect and his life exemplary.

It's like a religion, or something. Let us now worship our great intellectual benefactor, for none of us could have had a thought without him!

Wow.

Sk the Tajiks are now in Yankee style eh?

Of course I'm only talking about uncle's circles of fire

We maoites had this out back in the very much too late 70's

Our job is attack uncle's game plans not any other great powers
Like the soviets in their then final gasp of forward policy

I recall in an interview mjs and I conducted with el chom in 1980
Suggesting to him the soviets were projecting more then previously
He disagreed and suggested soviet influence maximized in the late 50's

Two different things of course influence and power projection
But I dropped it there

And here it is again
Russian projection or re projection meets forwarding Yankee probes
circa late 2001

To re iterate
Yes I have no dog in any other hunts then uncles

And yet the is-pal scrap is still well past over exposure
On the left agenda...outside new York local politics that is

Trying to suggest jewish Americans have undue influence here
And
That the absurd uncle sponsoring of their silly little sand trap project
Even against uncle's own best interests
Is conclusive proof
Strikes me as dead wrong
That
Is
even if it's not too far off from the heading taken in sean's comments

Look I have mark twain's take on our Jewish American brothers
As what 2% of the male pop
They do seem to be everywhere i'd like to be

Including inside Jewish gals hearts

But undue influence over uncle ?

Are you kidding

I doubt it like I doubt flat earth society findings

The I pad is all I have
I hurled my faithful long suffering lap top at the garage wall
in a fit of utterly unjustified fury two months ago

What a strange thing, the way Chomsky is treated as if a superman, as if he has no flaws, as if his views are perfect and his life exemplary.

Oh that's rich, MJS.

I quote you here:

Yet I probably would agree wholeheartedly with about 99% of what Chomsky has ever written. Isn't there some kind of useful inference to be drawn from this?

That's serious criticism and disagreement right there.

How long were you his grad student? 6 years?

MJS, it's become clear. You must denounce Noam Chompsky. Preferably with a accusation that will get him sent to the gulag.

That's what I love about the left, the constant pressure to denounce those that are less than pure.

Disclaimer:

I have no idea what Noam Chompsky believes, I haven't read his shit, and I don't even fucking care.

If being pure is a requirement I'll have to sidle myself off into a gulag along with Mr. Chompsky. Maybe while we're sitting in a filthy cell munching our dried bread crusts and drinking filty water he'll explain to me what he did that was so bad.

@Drunk: Somehow I don't think Karl and his various avatars are Lefties in any sense of the word. And if one has to go to the Gulag, one could certainly have much worse cellmates than Noam Chomsky -- who, if he ever goes to the Gulag, will not be sent there by the Left, but by somebody like Obama.

What a strange gambit, trying to put one on the defensive for liking the guy more than not and appreciating his work. You'd think he was treyf, or something.

"@Drunk: Somehow I don't think Karl and his various avatars are Lefties in any sense of the word"

heh... good call. You are correct.

"And if one has to go to the Gulag, one could certainly have much worse cellmates than Noam Chomsky -- who, if he ever goes to the Gulag, will not be sent there by the Left, but by somebody like Obama."

I can't argue with that.

"What a strange gambit, trying to put one on the defensive for liking the guy more than not and appreciating his work. You'd think he was treyf, or something. "

LOL.. yeah, that's what he does, puts people on the defensive.

It's ok, it's actually one of the things I most like about him.

Don't take it to heart or nothing, he's a cold case. Reminds me of me when I was about 30 years younger.

Eh, by the way, who is treyf?

You got my curiosity going.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/treyf

And of course the "he" referred to is Chomsky, not the various manifestations of Karl.

"Smitty"... what's the real surname?

You're so funny, so high-brow with your foreign lingo!

"You're a treyf!"

ouch that hurts so bad...

Watch me stump the lowbrows with foreign slang! I'm so encultured!

Of course I'm not a "leftist". What value is there in being a fan of centralized power, technology, and punitive attitudes toward those who disagree? The only difference between your outlook and that of those presently in power is... you're not in power.

Same merit-baby bafflegarb. Same condescending attitudes toward those with whom you disagree. Everyone must agree with you, or be called something disparaging in a slang term from a dead language. The viciousness of the wit! All 3 people who "get the joke" are howling! You're a regular comic assassin!

Oh... and nice secret decoder rings y'all have. Please remember to congratulate yourself on the Insular Jargon Putdown awards you give yourself!

you "academics" with your self-regard that is more impermeable than that of your direst enemies... the ironies can't be topped.