Rivero links to racism (?) at Palestinian-Intifada.com

Rivero linked to an article at intifada-palestine.com written by Khalid Amayreh.

An Epitome of the Israeli Jewish Society

The article starts with the despicable photos taken by the female Israeli military/prison warder, and moves to suggest it epitomises "Israeli Jewish Society".

Here's a definition of epitome:

a person or thing that is typical of or possesses to a high degree the features of a whole class.

Here's the author, asserting that the vileness of those photos epitomises the entire jewish/israel society:

Well, I don’t know if the Gestapo behaved similarly with Jewish detainees in the course of the Second World War. What is sufficiently clear to me though is that this woman’s sick behavior, especially her invocation of Zionism as a justification for her brutal sadism, is by no means an isolated case in a society suffering from a deep collective psychosis.

This is why it is safe to assume that this type of behavior represents the modus operandi in the Israeli occupation army as well as throughout the Israeli Jewish society as a whole.

It is a society that has come to view the Palestinians as “objects for abuse” rather than “human beings.” This is what makes Israeli soldiers so callously and so nonchalantly and haphazardly murder innocent Palestinians in the streets, in schools, and playgrounds in Gaza.
SOURCE

Emphasis added.

Der Sturmer? Crikey. Of course Israelis are killing innocent children at playgrounds all the time.....aren't they? It's a matter of policy, isn't it? Sure. And who is actually being dehumanised in those paragraphs? The picture is of Israelis as some zombified military menace - Zio-drones? So who is being dehumanised here? And isn't this racism - at least anti-semitism? The writer specifically says An Epitome of Israeli-Jewish society.

Here's their own list of contributors:

Prominent Contributors:

Alan Hart
Alan Sabrosky
Anthony Lawson
Aijaz Zaka Syed
Debbie Menon
Frank Lamb
Hesham Tillawi
Jeff Gates
James Petras
Maidhc O Cathail
Paul Balles
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Tim King
Joe Mowrey
William A. Cook
Antoine Raffoul
Stuart Littlewood
Khalid Amayreh
Dr. Elias Akleh
Bishop Donald R. Corder
Dr. Lawrence Davidson


Also Featured Writers:

Allison Weir
Ali Abunimah
Ayman T. Qadar
Elias Akleh
Grant Smith
Richard Falk
Tammy Obeidallah
Jeffrey Blankfort
Juan Cole
Jonathan Cook
Justin Ramiando
John Trafficant
Mary Rizzo
Mohmed Khodr
Omar Barghouti
Philip Giraldi
Ramzy Baroud
Raymond Deane
Stuart Littlewood
Terry Arnold
Dr. Bouthaina Shabaan
Glenn Greenwald

If one takes a look here, it can be seen they are still using images known to be of highly questionable authenticity:


That image comes from a series (from Qana) and they are discussed here::

2. Photographing scenes staged by Hezbollah and presenting the images as if they were of authentic spontaneous news events.

This is where the Reuters scandal started: with bloggers noticing that some of the images showing the aftermath of the July 30 air raid on Qana looked fishy. There are by now dozens of different photographs from that day whose authenticity has been seriously questioned, so all I can present here is a small representative sample.

Marx and Rights

"In responding to Bauer, Marx makes one of the most enduring arguments from his early writings, by means of introducing a distinction between political emancipation — essentially the grant of liberal rights and liberties — and human emancipation. Marx's reply to Bauer is that political emancipation is perfectly compatible with the continued existence of religion, as the contemporary example of the United States demonstrates. However, pushing matters deeper, in an argument reinvented by innumerable critics of liberalism, Marx argues that not only is political emancipation insufficient to bring about human emancipation, it is in some sense also a barrier. Liberal rights and ideas of justice are premised on the idea that each of us needs protection from other human beings. Therefore liberal rights are rights of separation, designed to protect us from such perceived threats. Freedom on such a view, is freedom from interference. What this view overlooks is the possibility — for Marx, the fact — that real freedom is to be found positively in our relations with other people. It is to be found in human community, not in isolation. So insisting on a regime of rights encourages us to view each other in ways which undermine the possibility of the real freedom we may find in human emancipation. Now we should be clear that Marx does not oppose political emancipation, for he sees that liberalism is a great improvement on the systems of prejudice and discrimination which existed in the Germany of his day. Nevertheless, such politically emancipated liberalism must be transcended on the route to genuine human emancipation. Unfortunately, Marx never tells us what human emancipation is, although it is clear that it is closely related to the idea of non-alienated labour, which we will explore below ........"

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/

I think he was definitely onto something there.

A friend's Welsh Holiday - with a great soundtrack......haha

Trotsky on the national question

I find this very difficult. I'm not sure I get much out of it atm. I'm most interested in the fusion of nationalisms which he mentions as being essentially Bolshevik. I'm very sympathetic to such positions and also like how he notes the right - not duty! - of nations to independence.

In two countries of pre-war Europe the national question was of exceptional political significance: in Tsarist Russia and in Hapsburg Austria-Hungary. In each of these the workers' party, created its own school. In the sphere of theory, the Austrian Social-Democracy, in the persons of Otto Bauer and Karl Renner, considered nationality independent of territory, economy and class, transforming it into a species of abstraction limited by so-called “national character.”

In the field of national policy, as for that matter in all other fields, it did not venture beyond a corrective status quo. Fearing the very thought of dismembering the monarchy, the Austrian Social-Democracy strove to adapt its national programme to the borders of the patchwork state.

The programme of so-called “national cultural autonomy” required that the citizens of one and the same nationality, irrespective of their dispersal over the territory of Austria-Hungary and irrespective of the administrative divisions of the state should be united, on the basis of purely personal attributes, into one community for the solution of their “cultural” tasks (the theatre, the church, the school, and the like). That programme was artificial and utopian, in so far as it attempted to separate culture from territory and economy in a society torn apart by social contradictions; it was at the same time reactionary, in so far as it led to a forced disunion into various nationalities of the workers of one and the same state, undermining their class strength.

Lenin’s position was the direct opposite. Regarding nationality as unseverably connected with territory, economy and class structure, he refused at the same time to regard the historical state, the borders of which cut across the living body of the nations, as a sacrosanct and inviolate category.

He demanded recognition of the right to secession and independent existence for each national portion of the state.

In so far as the various nationalities, voluntarily or through force of necessity, coexist within the borders of one state, their cultural interests must find the highest possible satisfaction within the framework of the broadest regional (and consequently, territorial) autonomy, including statutory guarantees of the rights of each minority. At the same time, Lenin deemed it the incontrovertible duty of all the workers of a given state, irrespective of nationality, to unite in one and the same class organisations.

The national problem was particularly acute in Poland, aggravated by the historical fate of that country. The so-called PPS (Polish Socialist Party), headed by Josef Pilsudski, came out ardently for Polish independence; the “socialism” of the PPS was no more than a vague appendage of its militant nationalism. On the other hand, the Polish Social-Democracy, whose leader was Rosa Luxemburg, counterposed to the slogan of Polish independence the demand for the autonomy of the Polish region as a constituent part of democratic Russia. Luxemburg proceeded from the consideration that in the epoch of imperialism the separation of Poland from Russia was economically infeasible and in the epoch of socialism — unnecessary.

Abstraction

She looked upon “the right of self-determination” as an empty abstraction. The polemic on that question lasted for years. Lenin insisted that imperialism did not reign similarly or equably in all countries, regions and spheres of life; that the heritage of the past represented an accumulation and interpenetration of various historical epochs; that although monopolistic capitalism towers above everything, it does not supersede everything; that, notwithstanding the domination of imperialism, the numerous national problems retained their full force and that, contingent upon the internal and world conjunctures, Poland might become independent even in the epoch of imperialism.

It was Lenin’s view that the right of self-determination was merely an application of the principles of bourgeois democracy in the sphere of national relations. A real, full-bodied, all-sided democracy under capitalism was unrealisable; in that sense the national independence of small and weak peoples was likewise “unrealisable”. However, even under imperialism, the working class did not refuse to fight for democratic rights, including among them the right of each nation to its independent existence.

Moreover, in certain portions of our planet it was imperialism itself that invested the slogan of national self-determination with extraordinary significance. Although Western and Central Europe have somehow managed to solve their national problems in the course of the nineteenth century, in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and South America the epoch of national democratic movements had not really begun to unfold until the twentieth century. To deny the right of nations to self-determination is tantamount in effect to offering aid and comfort to the imperialists against their colonies and generally against all oppress, ed nationalities.

The problem of nationalities was considerably aggravated in Russia during the period of reaction. “The wave of militant nationalism,” wrote Stalin, “called attention from above to numerous acts of repressions by those in power, who wreaked their vengeance upon the border states for their love of freedom, calling forth in response a wave of nationalism from below, which at times passed into crude chauvinism.”

This was the time of the ritual murder trial of the Kiev Jew Bayliss. Retrospectively, in the light of civilisation’s latest achievements, especially in Germany and in the USSR, that trial today seems almost a humanitarian experiment. But in 1913 it shocked the whole world. The poison of nationalism began to affect many sections of the working class as well. Alarmed, Gorky wrote to Lenin about the need for counteracting this chauvinistic rabidness. “As for nationalism, I quite agree with you, “ replied Lenin, “that we must cope with it more earnestly than ever. We have a splendid Georgian staying with us here who is writing a long article for Prosveshcheniye (Enlightenment), after garnerning all the Austrian and other material. We will bear down on it.”

The reference was to Stalin. Gorky, long connected with the party, knew all its leading cadres well. But Stalin evidently was utterly unknown to him since Lenin had to resort to such an impersonal, although flattering, expression as “a splendid Georgian”. This is, by the way, the only occasion when Lenin characterised a prominent Russian revoluionist by the token of his nationality. He had in mind, of course, not a Georgian, but a Caucasian: the element of primitiveness undoubtedly attracted Lenin; small wonder that he treated Kamo with such tenderness.

During his two months’ sojourn abroad Stalin wrote a brief but very trenchant piece of research entitled “Marxism and the National Problem”. Since it was intended for a lawful magazine, the article resorted to discreet vocabulary. Its revolutionary tendencies were nonetheless distinctly apparent.

Materialist

The author set out by counterposing the historico-materialistic defition of nation to the abstracto-psychological, in the spirit of the Austrian school. “The nation,” he wrote, “is a historically-formed enduring community of language, territory, economic life and psychological composition, asserting itself in the community of culture.” This combined definition, compounding the psychological attributes of a nation with the geographic and economic conditions of its development, is not only correct theoretically but practically fruitful, for then the solution to the problem of each nation’s fate must perforce be sought along the lines of changing the material conditions of its existence, beginning with territory.

Bolshevism was never addicted to the fetishistic worship of a state’s borders. Politically the point was to reconstruct the Tsarist empire, that prison of nations, territorially, politically, and administratively in line with needs and wishes of the nations themselves.

The party of the proletariat does not enjoin the various nationalities either to remain within the bounds of a given state or separate from it: that is their own affair. But it does obligate itself to help each of them to realise its actual national will. As for the possibility of separating from a state, that is a matter of concrete historical circumstances and the relation of forces. “No one can say,” wrote Stalin, “that the Balkan War is the end of internal and external circumstances that one or another nationality in Russia will deem it necessary to postulate and to solve the problem of its own independence. And, of course, it is no business of the Marxists to place barriers in such cases. But for that very reason Russian Marxists cannot get along without the right of nations to self-determination.”

The interests of the nations which voluntarily remain within the bounds of democratic Russia would be fenced off by means of “the autonomies of such sBy elf-determined units as Poland, Lithuania, the Ukraine, the Caucasus, and the like. Regional autonomy is conducive to a better utilisation of the natural wealth of the region; it does not divide citizens along national lines and makes it possible for them to group themselves in class parties.” The territorial self-administration of regions in all spheres of social life is counterposed to the extra-territorial — that is, platonic—self-administration of nationalities in matters of “culture” only.

However, most directly and acutely significant, from the point of view of the proletariat’s struggle, was the problem of the relations between workers of various nationalities inside the same state. Bolshevism stood for a compact and indivisible unification of workers of all nationalities in the party and in the trade unions on the basis of democratic centralism.

“The type of organisation does not exert its influence on practical work alone. It places an indelible stamp on the worker’s whole spiritual life. The worker lives the life of his organisation, within which he develops spiritually and is educated...The international type of organisation is a school of comradely feelings, of the greatest agitation in favour of internationalism.“

One of the aims of the Austrian programme- of “cultural autonomy” was “the preservation and development of the national idiosyncrasies of peoples.” Why and for what purpose? asked Bolshevism in amazement. Segregating the various nationalistic portions of mankind was never our concern. True, Bolshevism insisted that each nation should have the right to secede—the right, but not the duty—as the ultimate, most effective guarantee against oppression. But the thought of artificially preserving national idiosyncrasies was profoundly alien to Bolshevism.

The removal of any, even disguised, even the most refined and practically “imponderable” national oppression or indignity, must be used for the revolutionary unification rather than the segregation of the workers of various nationalities.Wherever national privileges and injuries exist, nations must have the possibility to separate from each other, that thus they may facilitate the free unification of the workers, in the name of a close rapprochement of nations, with the distinct perspective of the eventual complete fusion of all. Such was the basic tendency of Bolshevism, which revealed the full measure of its force in the October Revolution.
SOURCE

I don't understand all that.

I find it funny when people say marxism is a mad-rigid ideology, with iron-laws determining every policy. Robots can do it, they say. So how come there's no fucking obvious answers to be had then? How come reading Trotsky is more like reading poetry than a manifesto for Israel/Palestine which myself and Joe Public can understand? This is no way to brainwash people! If I'm to become a zombie for the left then I need some answers! And I'm not finding any. Who in hell is ever going to read this stuff? Who is going to understand it? If no-one hears, you haven't said it.

Israel/Palestine, anti-semitism and marxism

Article 22 of the Hamas charter, written in 1988, has this to say about the Jews:

“With their money [the Jews] stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there.”

Hamas are not the only anti-Semitic organisation to have claimed a link between Jews and Communism. Nazi publication Der Stürmer frequently and hysterically attacked ‘Jewish Communism’ii. The anti-Semitic pamphlet The Jewish Bolshevism, produced by the White Russians shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, purported to show how Jews had been the driving force behind the Revolutioniii.

Whilst it is true that a quick Google for ‘Jews Communism’ brings back a list of strange websites such as wake-up-america.net and www.white-history.com all claiming to show Jewish/Communist conspiracies to take over America, it must be said that the perception of Jews has changed radically over the last 30-60 years. Today, much of the ‘left’ views Jews (or Israelis – more on that later) as a single reactionary bloc dedicated to oppression of the Palestinians and defence of neo-liberalism.iv

So, Jews as revolutionary Communists or Jews as right-wing defenders of a neoliberal world order? Is there any truth in either of these positions? Has there been a shift to the right amongst the majority of Jews?
SOURCE

Now that's the sort of thing I am looking for. I think.

Firstly, it hardly needs pointing out that the Jewish people are subject to the same forces that affect everyone else. Whilst conditions peculiar to the Jewish people mean these forces are expressed in a somewhat unique way, the roots of the changes in Jewish political views are in the great political convulsions that have shaken the world.

Following on from this, it is also important that the left intelligentsia, with its lack of grounding in Marxism and the class struggle, has always become disorientated and confused when presented with any sort of crisis. One common manifestation of this confusion is a need to ‘take sides’ when two reactionary forces are fighting each other. This is not a recent phenomenon – after the Second World War, after the reactionary nature of the Stalinist bureaucracy had become obvious, a number of ‘left’ intellectuals chose to side with the imperialist West, believing the Soviet Union to be the bigger impediment to socialism!

I like that - the comment about the apparent need to 'take sides' when two reactionary forces fight each other. I'm a big believer in the brain as a self-patterning system, and the way the brain hates unresolved issues, questions with no answer, etc. The brain insists on an answer, it does not easily vacillate and withhold its conclusions....it has to obtain a conclusion, that's what it does. (Hence stereotype, binary thinking, black and white, us and them, etc and thus a need to "take sides"?)

Anyway, more interestingly Marxist.com continues and casts the ADL etc as right-wing (Alex Jones crowd readers, please take note?):

The right-wing attitudes of the ADL and the Simon Wiesenthal Center come as no surprise to anyone who understands the Jewish people not as a single bloc, but as a group riven by class divisions. As in any community or ethnic group, the ‘communal organisations’ have always represented the wealthy elite of the Jewish community, who adapted themselves to the ruling classes of the countries they settled in (particularly Britain and the US), and often had scant regard for poor and working-class Jews. Hence the British Board of Guardians (forerunner to the Board of Deputies) supported the notoriously anti-Semitic 1905 Aliens Act, aimed at curbing Jewish immigration to Britain, partly for fear that many of the Jewish immigrants were ‘Communists’ and would undermine the position of this communal elite, partly because they (as MPs and even peers) were thoroughly wedded to the British ruling class.

Similarly, the communal organisations in the US were set up, and funded, by wealthy Jews, and unsurprisingly reflect the interests of the wealthy. It is not that Jews are threatened by the Latin American revolution, rather the US ruling class feels threatened, and a section of the US ruling class claims to speak on behalf of all Jews.

Well, that seems to much better explain the situation than anything offered by these crazy conspiracists and nazis.

Somewhat reflecting my own sentiments on the subject's complexity, the writer concludes:

This essay may seem somewhat disjointed, but that is an inevitable consequence of the complexity of the subject matter. Simplistic denunciations of ‘Jews abandoning their morality’ and ‘turning from oppressed to oppressor’ (accusations hurled by Jew and non-Jew alike) are worse than useless. I’ve tried to chart the many dialectical forces that have affected the world population over the past 60 years, and show how, due to the special historical and material conditions of the Jewish people, these forces have affected Jews in a special way.

Some Jews became split from the left over the question of Israel, and this split will not be healed until a revolutionary movement develops which can unite the Israeli and Palestinian workers and poor against their imperialist oppressors, and provide a class-based solution to the problems of the Jews and the Palestinians.

As revolutionary Marxists, we concern ourselves little with the fate of the ‘left intelligentsia’ (whether Jewish or gentile), which has always splintered and fragmented when faced with any sort of political test. To borrow Trotsky’s phrase, they are ‘political eunuchs’, so of little interest to us.

As for the decline of ‘Jewish Bolshevism’, we feel sure that the emergence of a serious revolutionary movement, capable of challenging the capitalist system and its bourgeois ideologues, will attract many Jews to its banner, just as has happened in the past.

I'd like to find such sentiments echoed amongst pro_Palestinian movements. The American anti-Israeli movement, with its militia, patriot, christian identity and nazi wings just doesn't cut it. The problem is, no other voice is even heard amongst such crowds. Worse - no other voice is wanted amongst such crowds - such voices are driven out. Such people already know all the answers.

I/P Negotiations.....or maybe not

The BBC is reporting that

Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to resume direct negotiations for the first time in 20 months, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have been invited to Washington on 2 September to start the talks.

They have agreed to place a one-year time limit on the direct negotiations.

But correspondents say prospects of a comprehensive deal are slim, as serious disagreements exist on the core issues.
SOURCE

Elsewhere, a pro-Stalin and pro-Palestinian website reports that Hamas and other groups have issued statements opposing such negotiations and preferring instead "the choice of resistance to liberate the land and end the occupation":-

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine joined with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the DFLP and 7 other Palestinian factions to issue a joint statement in Damascus in opposition to the resumption of negotiations, direct or indirect, with Israel
........
The statement called for an end to internal division and urged that instead of negotiations, the Palestinian Authority concentrate on building national unity, "and to stop betting on the futile negotiations, and instead adhere to Palestinian national rights and constants and the choice of resistance to liberate the land and end the occupation."
SOURCE

Hmmm. Refuse negotiations and choose 'liberation' instead? And build national unity? Why the need? They're admitting they are deeply split, that there is no national palestinian unity? That Hamas and the rest of these people are not fully supported? That they're acting contrary to the wishes of Abbas and the Palestinian Authority? Who knows? Anyway - clearly they are against negotiations and prefer (surely violent) 'liberation' instead. This is what the Freedom Flotilla supported? Armed resistance over negotiation?

Lenin on the National Question

"The cornerstone of the whole policy of the Communist International on the national and colonial questions", stated Lenin, "must be closer union of the proletarians and working masses generally of all nations and countries for a joint revolutionary struggle to overthrow the landlords and the bourgeoisie; for this alone will guarantee victory over capitalism, without which the abolition of national oppression and inequality is impossible." (Preliminary Draft of Theses on the National and Colonial Questions, 5th June 1920)
--------

So, there can be no resolution to the national question under capitalism, according to Lenin. Elsewhere he wrote:

"The tendency of every national movement is towards the formation of national states, under which these requirements of modern capitalism are best satisfied." (The Right of Nations to Self-Determination, Progress Publishers, pp.8-9)

Something of the same fatalism informs my own view as nationalism is seemingly closely tied to capitalism. It's certainly very hard to reconcile nationalism with socialism, internationalist as it is. Hence my own ambivalence towards national movements, i think, of which I am essentially non-plussed: national issues seem so chauvanist. But on the other hand nationalist movements can be seen as anti-colonialist movements, self-assertive and foundational for an identity away from colonial, imperialist capitalism. Both Palestine and Israel can be seen as examples of Nationalist movements too and that makes the particular position all the more difficult. Still, I think my position has largely been informed by a growing perception that Israel's nationalist movement gets small regard as compared to the Palestinian one because any jewish nationalist movement can be considered zionism and 'zionism' has become an acceptable term for anti-semitism. Treating existing jewish nationalism (zionism) as a euphemism for Hitlerite jewish world conspiracy leads people to consider jewish nationalism to be illegitimate, even as other nationalisms (the Palestinians in particular) are treated as unimpeachably positive, ethical and anti-imperialistic. On what grounds then is jewish nationalism (zionism) so derided and considered to be so malign? Because Israel (jews) is/are considered to be the ultimate imperialists - world jewish conspiracy - capitalism as jewish plot etc. Even discarding such objectionable views, Israel can be considered a more integral part of capitalist imperium than Palestine (if such a thing as Palestine can be said to exist.) Israel is an American ally....a client state. But even then, it is a client state and as such is a victim of the imperialist system too, even as it claims its special privileges due by dint of its strategic importance as an ally in a particularly hostile part of the world (hostile to american imperialist hegemony, that is, which is partly what gives Israel its strategic position - an ally amongst a sea of enemies.) Point being, Israel is locked into present status quo because it needs protection of imperium. That makes Israeli nationalism a victim of (capitalist) imperium too, a product of it. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is just another subset of the same relationships and a product and example of the same system. Anti-semitism provides a way to ignore this, and leads to obsession about a particular aspect, whereby all the flaws of the wider (capitalist imperialist) system are laid at Israel's door. So the criticism of the anti-semites makes sense in so far as it deploys legitimate structural criticism of capitalism and imperialism (and nationalism, and racism and war and MIC) only they ascribe the problems to Israel alone.....to Jews.... That's their appeal (legitimate criticism) and their error (to ascribe it to Israel/Jews alone)

Lenin might legitimately know about nationalism because of the position of Czarist Russia, one which the Revolution eventually inherited and had to deal with. Incredibly successfully it has to be said. Notably, perhaps, not without violence and threats of it. Civil war. The Cheka. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union did manage to bind seemingly infinite nationalist and separatist movements. Marxist.com says:

".....tsarist Russia, whose empire constituted a "prison house of nationalities". Such was the make-up of the empire that the Great Russians, the ruling nationality, only constituted 48% of the whole. Those under Russian domination (Poles, Lithuanians, Estonians, Finns, Letts, Ukrainians, and so on), deprived of their rights, were systematically oppressed by tsarism. It was this that gave the national question in Russia such an explosive force.
SOURCE"

So, Lenin obviously had every reason to deal with nationalism and independence movements along with imperialism. And it really was handled incredibly successfully in many ways. No small thanks to the transition to Stalinism though, I guess, which takes some gloss off of the apparent accomplishment (doesn't it always? Stalin you fuck!!!)

Marxist.com says

"The demand of the right to self-determination [gave] rise to a heated controversy within the Russian Party, with opposition from Rosa Luxemburg, Bukharin, Pyatakov, and others. The essence of their opposition was that under capitalism, self-determination was utopian, while under socialism it was reactionary."

I think that would be my position. Further than that I find it hard to go. I really don't know much about I/P conflict to decide a definite policy, and declare individual instances of strict right and wrong. Anyway, I seem to always agree with Rosa Luxemburg. [I had an argument once with a history graduate who was astonished I claimed there was an attempt at a socialist revolution in Germany post ww1.....he couldn't believe what i was saying and i couldn't believe he was a history graduate. I don't know much about it, but Rosa Luxemburg did exist, right? Spartacists existed too? didn't they?]

Marxist.com disagrees and argues that

"...the argument is completely false as it ignores the epoch of the socialist revolution and its tasks. Clearly, under the domination of imperialism, the existence of stable independent small states is impossible."

Eh? They add

"Also under socialism, with the progressive withering away of the state, the question of national boundaries will fall away. However, in the intervening period, the forces have to be educated and mobilised to overthrow capitalism and a correct dialectical approach to the national question would facilitate this task."

Well, I don't think that's good enough. That's no response at all. Marxist.com - legitimate and authentic? I don't know.

I'm disappointed with Marxist.com. I can get that far on my own - that a "correct approach" is needed. What is it though?! Marxist.com says:

"Above all, the slogan of the right to self-determination was a powerful weapon in undermining bourgeois nationalism and winning the confidence of the workers of the oppressed nation. The possibility of separation facilitated a free unification of peoples. In order to convince the more politically backward workers, who had nationalist prejudices, it was necessary to stress that the working class had no interest in coercing any national minority. At the same time, we must argue for the unity of the working class under one banner, with implacable hostility to the poison of the small nation mentality and the poison of chauvinism."

That criticism of the "small nation mentality and chauvanism" can be laid at both Israeli and Palestinian nationalism but in fact it seems to be used exclusively against Israeli/jewish nationalism. That's one reason I am repelled by most supposedly 'pro-palestinian' causes. It's extremely rare to find such arguments deployed against Palestinian nationalism, rather it's always framed as 'anti-imperialist', self-assertive, positive. Nevermind it's lead by a clerical fascism? An Islamic religious/ethnic ultra-nationalism? Hardly something one can support without being sick. The same is said about Israeli leadership too.

From Marxist.com again:

"Above all, Lenin regarded the right of self-determination as subordinate to the interests of the working class. "The bourgeoisie always places its national demands in the forefront, and does so in categorical fashion. With the proletariat, however, these demands are subordinated to the interests of the class struggle." (Ibid, p.21) And again, "While recognising equality and equal rights to a national state, it values above all and places foremost the alliance of the proletarians of all nations, and assesses any national demand, any national separation, from the angle of the workers' class struggle." After all, the right to national self-determination is a bourgeois-democratic demand, not a socialist one."

self determination is subordinate to the class struggle. it is the bourgeoisie that places its national demands in the forefront. [When do you ever see that argument made? I never do, it's always appeals to nationalism and division]

that argument can suit both I & P. Well, I can relax - Trotsky said it was very complex, so how in hell will I know?

Marxist.com again:

"In the Middle East, there can be no solution to the "Palestinian problem" on a capitalist basis. While the Marxists opposed the partition of Palestine in 1948, and the expulsion of the Palestinians, Israel now exists with a people living there. The question now is how to guarantee a homeland to the Palestinians and put an end to their national oppression.

Revolutionary Programme

The national oppression of the Palestinian masses by the Israeli state expresses itself in the desire for their own homeland. How can this aspiration be realised? The policy and methods of the PLO, of individual terrorism and fawning towards the reactionary Arab regimes for a period of decades, have proved to be completely bankrupt. Only a revolutionary programme can serve to appeal to the Israeli workers and the Arab masses. Only a socialist revolution in Israel and similarly in all the surrounding Arab states can bring about a socialist federal state of Israel/Palestine, with its capital in Jerusalem, linked to a socialist federation of the Middle East."

Hmmm - that's optimistic? wow. some hope? What about until then?

Troofer (asking for donations) Censored Me

I went to respond to Ryan Dawson's version of the Troof at his website and he promoptly banned me and removed my half-dozen posts. Some commitment to Troof, huh?

Ryan has been asking for donations from Troofers for a smart new camera. Seems he's more interested in cash than debate.

I have kept copies of what I posted, I'll add them later. It's interesting to see what it is that people seek to censor. Also interesting to see people whom rail against (jewish) censorship stoop to the same thing themselves. But these little control freak plebs only want to protect their own views - they aren't doing it for any reasons of national security which might perhaps justify some "censorship" etc. They just want to protect themselves and their readers from any critical thought. Pathetic.

Troof available here: http://www.rys2sense.com/anti-neocons/

What's with All the Troofer Appeals for Donations? [They're having a laugh?]

Rivero keeps asking for donations. No matter he charges people to become members of his site already and never misses an opportunity to brag about his work, on the popular TV show "Lost" for example. And look at his usual portrait? Techno gubbins everywhere - because Mr Rivero is the hub of a super hi-tech political investigation system, dontcha know? But he still needs "donations"....from "you guys"....so he can "continue his important work"....fighting for....Troof(!)

If you can't pay the bills from blogging why expect to? And what bills are there? Rivero's site is only a news aggregator, so what are the costs? A domain name? A host? Big deal. If you can't stump the cash for it from subscriptions and your own wages for real-life paid work, then.....you can't do it....you need to do it differently, maybe even not at all. It isn't hard to understand? If you can't afford to do it, you can't do it. It also begs the question of why there isn't enough money coming into "the Troof Movement" to sustain itself, seeing as it's oh so massive, and all that, according to Rivero et al. Where's the money from all these DVD and TShirt sales going? Where's the money from all the advertisers of doom and their miracle cancer cures going? Must be going somewhere? (My costs for running a blog are practically zero. I have never once in 10 years considered asking for donations for my online activity - why would one do it? Seems a conceit, to expect other people to pay for one's own hobby, and what costs are people on about? I would have thought some paychecks from a TV company for "special effects producer" on a popular TV show would easily cover it....)

Today Rivero is promoting someone else's plea for donations. They broke their camera - awww. And they need a new one, so they're asking for donations. Last one was a red Sony Cybershot, apparently. So hey, make the donations tidy so he can get a nice new one? I mean, it's so important that YouTube has another upload of American patriot twaddle, right? It's crucial to "the movement", guys......



Sony Cybershot are circa £150 in UK IIRC. You can get a bog-standard webcam for £10, but presumably they don't have the quality to properly express Patriot loathing of Israel. Need 10 Megapixels for that......

I notice the dude doesn't say how he broke the glass on his camera, though he does say it was after he'd filmed his Jujitsu. Hmmm - kick the camera did you? So, hey! Why not get the gullible punters of the Pay-triot Movement to dip into their wallets? Pathetic.

Seems the dude is an author, of sorts:

"Ryan Dawson is the author of the book entitled "Welcome to the USSA". This book has sold thousands of copies worldwide, and you can pick up your copy at your local Barnes & Nobles bookstore, or by ordering a copy online to be shipped to you."

Surely this blockbuster can cover the cost of a camera?

Ryan Dawson's website appears to be rys2sense.com - a commonly used source for Rivero. At the site is a forum, the list of topics are the usual fare: 911, Gaza, Ron Paul....

A few lines below a category on "Economics" (including RonPaul) there's a category for "UK" - , with a subheading:

"America's abused house wife that keeps coming back for more no matter how it treats her. In America what Europeans might call NeoLiberals are called Neoconservatives."

Nevermind that RonPaul is a neo-liberal? Why can't these people ever get anything right? God, they're all the same! Identikit opinion. Yet it's crucial we hear more, apparently. So hurry along with those donations, right?

Patriot Edict Number 340 - Mullah Omar Must Make Sense

Mullah Omar must make sense. The Taliban must make sense. Everything else must change so that they do make sense. Ok?

Oh, and Mullah Omar is just like Washington, right? Same thing, ok?

Mike Rivero - Caught Bullshitting (yes, again.....)

Here's Rivero at WRH today:

And here's what Rivero writes elsewhere at his site:

Roosevelt needed an enemy, and if America would not willingly attack that enemy, then one would have to be maneuvered into attacking America, much as Marcus Licinius Crassus has maneuvered Spartacus into attacking Rome.

The way open to war was created when Japan signed the tripartite agreement with Italy and Germany, with all parties pledging mutual defense to each other. Whereas Hitler would never declare war on the United States no matter the provocation, the means to force Japan to do so were readily at hand.

The first step was to place oil and steel embargoes on Japan, using Japan's wars on the Asian mainland as a reason. This forced Japan to consider seizing the oil and mineral rich regions in Indonesia. With the European powers militarily exhausted by the war in Europe, the United States was the only power in the Pacific able to stop Japan from invading the Dutch East Indies, and by moving the Pacific fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Roosevelt made a pre-emptive strike on that fleet the mandatory first step in any Japanese plan to extend its empire into the "southern resource area".

Roosevelt boxed in Japan just as completely as Crassus had boxed in Spartacus. Japan needed oil. They had to invade Indonesia to get it, and to do that they first had to remove the threat of the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. There never really was any other course open to them.
SOURCE

This isn't the first time Rivero has completely contradicted himself on this exact subject. See my post, here.

WRH links to my comments elsewhere

WRH links to an article at a blog which turns out to be a response to one of my previous comments about Rivero VS Jones and anti-semitism generally. Lucky me!

The author seems open to comments, though they are moderated and don't appear until having passed. The author completely misrepresents my point, either accidentally or with malice. Who knows which?

I found the blog also just posted a full AFP/Willis Carto article penned by Chuck Baldwin. It also has an apparent welter of critical articles on Israel in its archives. "We're not anti-semitic.......but......"

Rivero did respond, and put up the first published reply. Hopefully another chance to raise some issues with Rivero infront of his own audience. ;)
-------

The blog is called "No More Censorship .com" It has moderated comments. lol/.

Here's the 2 comments so far, and my posts which are (atm) awaiting moderation.

Michael Rivero:
August 8, 2010 at 7:01 pm

Dismissing criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic is like dismissing criticism of the Nazis as anti-Germanic. “Hitler didn’t do anything wrong; you just HATE THE GERMAN PEOPLE!”
----------------
Ponce:
August 8, 2010 at 7:30 pm

As long as people use the word “Jew” instead of “Zionist” you will be giving them the weapon to fight you with, once you use the word Zionist then they will have nothing to fight you with.
-----------------------
Nim Chimpsky:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
August 8, 2010 at 9:07 pm

I’m grateful for the opportunity to respond. Thank you. So few people are prepared to address their critics.
———————-
Your post re anti-semitism is built from “IF”.

IF?

If anti-semitism is “something that isn’t anti-semitism” then anti-semitism isn’t anti-semitic.

Amazing.

But what about *real* anti-semitism? If anti-semitism is defined by any of the earlier definitions, or your efforts here, then *real* anti-semitism doesn’t exist. You’ve renamed it out of existence. Just like lung cancer ceases to be lung cancer when you change the definitions. Lung cancer can become…..a cough instead. So, no patient has lung cancer, they have a cough. Will they get better in a few days though? Redefining the word (anti-semitism) to mean something else completely is completely disingenuous – an underhanded rhetorical trick.

Just keep it simple, and recognise anti-semitism is a hatred of jews and all things jewish. And it *exists*.

Do you recognise *genuine* anti-semitism exists? Are you capable of recognising it? Can you provide some examples of *what real anti-semitism actually is* — so that the reader might judge if you are capable of recognising the real thing? Because if you can’t, then what is your opinion on the subject worth?

I’d also like to put those questions to Mr Rivero – does anti-semitism exist, cn you show us you can recognise genuine anti-semitism? In lieu of which readers can discard the silly protests about ‘anti-semitism’ being ‘all criticism of Israel’.

Criticism of Israel is fine. And it is “ever so allowed”. Look around? There’s plenty of it. Every turn we are faced with CRISIS and LOOK AT WHAT THEY’RE DOING NOW! Yet still people mutter how “they own the press” and “control politics” and everything else.

Criticism of Israel becomes anti-semitic when the criticism is unwarranted. When Israel becomes an obsession. When other states do the same without arousing similar comment and fury. When it’s viewed unfairly. When it blurs the lines of the targets of its attack. When it crosses from attacks on Israel to attacks on Jewish religion, ethnicity, etc. It’s pretty simple, really, though on the margins it gets trickier, of course.

Criticism of Israel or jews is also anti-semitic when its done by anti-semites, Nazis, fascists. Such people use criticism of Israel as a front to expound their sick agenda. They hide their hatred of jews behind the protective shield of claims about “we’re only criticising Israel”. In such ways, the far-right and the anti-semites exploit peoples’ good intentions and insinuate themselves into discourse otherwise denied them.

Neo-nazis “only criticise Israel” too…..right?

I mean, how do you tell the difference? And so how do you know who is really feeding you all this anti-Israeli stuff? It would be stupid to imagine the far-right weren’t doing this. And they are – there are long threads at Stromfront providing the means to implement such a strategy.

[BTW There are interesting connections between Nazism and Arab Ultranationalism and its production of luminaries like Yasser Arafat, the Grand Mufti, The MuslimBrotherhood, Hamas, Osama Bin Laden etc. This holds true even today, where the US far-right elicits connections with Islam.]

People like Mr Rivero are not simply “criticising Israel”. Mr Rivero indulges in the crudest Holocaust denial, feeding his readers swathes of thoroughly discredited far-right rubbish. Without ever putting his audience in touch with the real facts, even as a counter to the claims he carries (which all emanate from the American and European far-right. It’s nazism dressed-up as scholarship. It’s a con – like so much else that passes as “just criticising Israel”.)

Mr Rivero for example also hosts articles by the late Curt Maynard, a violent racist. Mr Rivero promoted Curt Maynard extenisvely, evenm hosting him on his radio show. Never did Rivero raise the issues of race, which around Curt Maynard can only be considered as “carefully avoiding the topic”.

Go and look at Curt Maynard’s writings? He’s “only criticising Israel”, huh? Rubbish. Maynard was violent, and a racist. HE was something of a celebrity amongst his Stormfront and Vanguard News Network friends – the Holocaust deniers, fascists and thugs. These are all National Socialist (ie Nazi) connections – and Rivero is familiar with them all. Rivero promotes them. But he never tells you the dear reader that these are genuine fascists. Instead, Rivero will promote some far-right propagandist claiming Israel is fascist. Funny – Israel’s supposed fascism is a dreadful thing, apparently, but the genuine fascism of Rivero’s friends is fine – it doesn’t get any critical comment. But it does get Rivero’s support, his publicity, an audience, dissemination and protection under the aegis of “we’re only criticising Israel”.

So, whilst Mr Rivero criticises the supposed fascism of Israel, he is silent on the genuine fascism of his friends, his colleagues, the work he promotes. Under such circumstances, Rivero’s criticism is certainly anti-semitic……as he criticises Israel for being “Nazi” whilst promoting Nazis and Nazism himself.

Would Mr Rivero deny he knew Curt Maynard was such a racist? Would he deny he knew Curt was cushty with Stormfront, VNN et al?

Likewise, does Mr Rivero dent he knows who John deNugent is? Deny he failed to inform his audience of John de Nugent’s far-right positions and history? Does Rivero deny he heavily promotes Willis Carto, and his various propganda organs? Does Rivero deny Willis Carto is considered “N America’s leading anti-semite”? That Carto sponsors Holocaust denial conferences, and invites the leading lights of N American and European fascism? Such as the former Einsatzgruppen Officer (involved in the holocaust which Rivero denies ever happened)?

With such a profile as Rivero’s, all this faux outrage about being considered “anti-semitic” is a joke. Likewise, efforts to redefine the term so as to exclude jew-hate are fabulously cynical.

The far-right is playing public opinion with this “we’re only criticising Israel” lark.

Criticise Israel all you like? But don’t pretend that anti-semitism doesn’t exist. Don’t stoop to redefining the meaning simply to exzclude one’s self. Don’t pretend Nazis and jew-haters aren’t using peoples’ good intentions and piggybacking their (unpopular and disgusting) Nazism onto progressive and well intentioned liberalism.

Until there’s some evidence that writers can spot genuine anti-semitism, and that they take a strong position against it and act accordingly, then all this blather and whining about “false” accusations of anti-semitism should be ignored for the tripe it so obviously is.

I’d like to continue the conversation. It’s rare I am allowed to do so in such circles – I am usually prevented from posting, by these self-same people whom claim “the jews control the media” etc. So I appreciate your apparent wish to do so. I’m quite capable of remaining civil, as you can see? At worst – we might completely disagree? No big deal? So let’s continue?

---------------------------------------------
Nim Chimpsky:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
August 8, 2010 at 9:25 pm

OP: I received a comment this evening which states that I and anyone who disagrees with Israel and it’s policies are anti-Semitic.
————

I did not say that. At all. You should look at the reasons why you think that is what I said. I did not say that. That is not my point, at all.

Further, in another article here, you have republished a whole article by AFP (AmericanFreePress).

AFP is Willis Carto propaganda organ – Willis Carto is N AMerica’s leading anti-semite, according to some. Hardly a way to prove your credentials in an argument over whether your site is anti-semitic or not.

Why do you promote fascist propaganda behind a website called “nomorecensorship”? Do you think fascists maintain free speech and oppose censorship more than liberalism? (or whatever you think the USA’s political system currently is)?

You are just more of the same: promoting fascism from behind a banner of liberalism?

Do you not know whom Willis Carto is? Go see?

------------------------
Nim Chimpsky:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
August 8, 2010 at 10:08 pm

Can you give me a reason why you have 6 entries for Israel in your list of topics, but none for USA, none for Islam, none for Terrorism, none for Imperialism, none for fascism, none for nazism, none for racism, none for anti-semitism, none for feminism, none for socialism, none for …..?

Your agenda – you can have whatever topics you like.

But your interests still speak. SO, why all these entries for Israel? Presumably you have never reported a story which features genuine anti-semitism, yet there are 6 categories on Israel alone. But none for Turkey. None for Sri Lanka. None for Sudan, Chechenya, Tibet, China, Russia, EU, S America, Africa, Nagorny Karabak……nothing. But 6 for Israel.

Your topics exclude an awful lot, but are especially exhaustive about only…..Israel…and other items on the agenda of the far-right.

Might I ask you to explain this apparent…..obsession?

We'll see if the comments get published, and if there's any response from the author, Rivero or unknown others.....? I'm hopeful - how can "nomorecensorship.com" seriously prevent such posts being published? Of course they could censor it and it would expose their name as cant. We'll see....

More on Jones vs Rivero

I'm enjoying this. I'm enjoying the troofers finally having to confront the fact anti-semitism is a big issue within 911 Troof and US Patriot Movement, etc.

I applaud Alex Jones for once. Seemingly he's taken a stand against the quite extreme anti-semitism of Mike Rivero - about time too. But is that what has happened? Did Jones sack Rivero for his anti-semitism?

One post has been doing the rounds amongst the pro-Rivero set: it includes a few quotes apparently from Mike Rivero on the topic, and also includes a ludicrous 'reader's response' which is nothing but an Orwellian effort at Newspeak - redefining the meaning of anti-semitism so as to avoid the accusation. Not exactly a rebuttal! lol

Here's Rivero, supposedly, and the assinine Newspeak response from one of his readers:

Announcement from Mike …

“I have just been informed by the Alex Jones show that they are canceling my monthly interviews commencing this coming Tuesday. Imagine my shock and disappointment. No, really, just imagine it!”

A little more info from Mike …

WRH: “I have not made a big deal about the reasons for the move, but in a nutshell, GCN is a reflection of Alex Jones’ views of the world, and more and more our points of view regarding Israel are diverging. I get a lot of email asking why I do not challenge Alex on his defense of Israel, or asking why every time I am on his show Alex feels obligated to have a pro-Israel representative on immediately afterwards to counter the points that I made.

I view the attack by Israel on a US flagged ship and Americans in international waters as an act of war and all who defend said attack as traitors to the USA. Alex holds a different view and I guess the breaking point was his rant in which he said that anyone who is a critic of Israel is a “weak-minded fool”. That made it a personal attack, and I decided it was time to step out of Alex’s shadow and go in a different direction.”

Imagine being too anti-semitic for Jones? Too paranoid for Jones!? Too ridiculous!? *The reader response which has accompanied these quotes around the net appears at the end of this post - the 15 points about semitism.*

I found two recent episodes of Jones' radioshow still at PrisonPlanet - this one from June 1st, where Alex and Rivero talk about the Flotilla episode, and this one, from July 6th where Rivero seemingly blames everything on Israel, and Alex is audibly struggling to follow Rivero's line.

Jones hits Rivero with some very good points, for once, which left Rivero scrabbling around with anti-semitic tat instead of cogent reason: Jones (rightly) said the evidence clearly shows the Israeli soldiers being attacked with knives and bars and also asked why Israel would be trying to start a war between N & S Korea, as Rivero claimed. Rivero's responses were very weak as soon as Alex stated the most appropriate points, which he really seemed to be trying to do in as amiable and non-confrontational fashion possible. (He never likes to disagree with guests - the script is 'everyone agrees, really'.)

Interesting listen (for anything by these people). I am quite impressed with Jones saying what he does at some points - somewhat ridiculing those whom believe Israel/Jews are the cause of all problems in the world, that it's a religion for the haters. Very good stuff, considering it's Alex Jones.

Personally I feel atm that Jones is operating as normal - but critically he now has new ammunition to rebut charges of anti-semitism (and fascism. Though he could easily be a fascist absent chronic anti-semitism, of course) Jones can carry-on saying the same things as ever, interviewing the same anti-semites as ever, promoting Willis Carto, Eustace Mullins, Reverend Pike, AFP etc....and yet can claim he even bust-up with Mike Rivero because of Rivero's anti-semitism.

And Rivero gets the (surely undeserved) benefit of being known as someone 'prepared to sacrifice nothing for his principles'? In that sense it does neither of them any harm, rather it reinforces their respective myths and allows them to carry on doing what they were before, only now they're reinvigorated with increased and more distinct appeal to their respective crowd.

Some questions arise: why didn't Alex notice Rivero's anti-semitism in the beginning? What took so long for Alex to see it? What attracted him to having Rivero on his show in the first place? They have been close enough for a long time - and Alex surely has long known about Rivero's connections with the far-right.

And why has Jones never mentioned anti-semitism around Eustace Mullins? Why hasn't Mullins' Nazi background prevented Jones from idolising him? Jones has called Eustace Mullins 'a modern day Founding Father!' What a difference to Jones' treatment of Rivero? How come?

And why hasn't Jones ever taken a position over Willis Carto? Why has Jones persisted in promoting Carto's various fascist output? Why does Prisonplanet even host pages from Carto's old AFP website when they're dumping Rivero for "differences of opinion"? (If that is what has happened)

Jones has done well to perhaps distance himself from anti-semitism - if that's what he's doing. For once I applaud Alex Jones heartily. Yet Jones is also opening himself to strong charges of hypocrisy - what about Willis Carto, Eustace Mullins, Reverend Pike, David Duke etc? Will all this stuff be purged too? I don't believe it will.

And we still have the as yet unanswered conundrum of why the far-right bootboys find Jones' output so useful and interesting when according to Jones such people "100% oppose" his views and the agenda of Prisonplanet. No Alex - they like you because they agree with and share your views - it's called your constituency, Alex - your audience.

Jones had Rivero on his show to appeal to his audience - maybe to 'tell them things', to 'give his opinion' etc. That's why he was on the show? Why else? Same reason Eustace Mullins, Reverend Pike and the rest of those people feature on Jones show and amongst his ouevre, Because he completely agrees with them and thinks his audience should! That's why he had Rivero on, and why he's now getting rid of him: Jones doesn't have people on his show with whom he disagrees.

So, if Rivero goes, apparently because of "diferences of opinion on editorial line", what about the rest? So long as they aren't explicitly anti-semitic on the show they can continue to be regarded as 'modern-day Founding Fathers'? Even though they're saying the exact same things, only somewhat more euphemistically? [The same charge I lay at Alex Jones - that he employs vague euphemism (such as NWO, bankers, elites) to be understood by much of his audience as "jooos" and (Hitlerite) World Jewish Conspiracy.]

So, Alex's position looks like grandstanding to me: he can carry-on pushing his anti-semitic euphemism and promoting Publishers of the PRotocols and Holocaust denial (just as he's always done) whilst now also claiming (and being known) to have 'taken a stand against anti-semitism'. Hardly a real principled position. And Rivero can get the credit from the other wing for refusing to bow to 'Zion'. All's well?

Further dampening the optimism aroused by the possibility of a real discussion on this in 911 Truth we have Prisonplanet already deleting forum threads mentioning the Rivero affair. It's understandable that they might not wish to allow a flamefest about it, but if it is really an issue about editorial policy over anti-semitism - and about the Troof Movements position on it - isn't it a discussion that needs having? If Prisonplanet really do see it as such an important and potentially divisive issue shouldn't they be embracing the opportunity to make their position clear? Shouldn't they be delineating the scope and content of their differences with anti-semitism? To suppress discussion about it seems to reveal a lack of will to properly address the issues, though it isn't impossible to imagine other reasons for it.

Maybe there really are other reasons for the split. Personal issues? Alex has plenty. Neither Jones or Rivero seem especially interested in hearing any opinion outside of their own conspiracist straitjackets. Once such people disagree, it's going to be tough to reconcile them?

Then there's commercial reasons? Whom would wish to advertise on anything Rivero touched? (Or Jones!) Of course, as Rivero's groupies tell it this is a result of - and proof of - Jones' servitude to supposed 'Zio-money' and 'Zio-media' (in the Rivero vernacular at least) [Funny how the influence of others is so malign, yet the influence of 911 Troof Movement so benevolent? It's a common-enough protest of the powerless - one given expression in 911 Troof on the vehicle of anti-semitism. The Troof Movement and anti-semitism both place great emphasis on 'influence' - media ownership, political intrigue, corporate sponsorship etc. They even say "There's a war on for your mind!" But if we are to believe the various assertions and premises of Rivero and Jones' paranoid rantings, then it's a war that has already been lost - long ago. We have tyranny, thought-control, mass manipulation, false history as facts, supposedly. Such is 'influence'! This reminds me of one Umberto Eco's 'Ways to Spot a Blackshirt': the enemy must be wholly powerful and accomplished whilst alternating at the same time witht he idea that the enemy is also weak and fatally flawed. Both Jones and Rivero employ this exact rhetorical dualism. ]

Umberto puts it better than I (no shit!)

Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.

That's a reassuring last line and one I've held to for some time.

Just for the record, here's the 'reader comment' which has been attached to Rivero's comments in that post that has been doing the rounds. The points were originally posted at WRH, apparently.

From a comment at WRH …

READER: With all of the “anti-semitic” accusations being thrown around lately, it might be wise to try and define just what “semitism” really is so that we can be sure not to be “anti-semitic”.

1) If “semitism” is stealing your neighbor’s land, destroying his house and imprisoning and torturing his family, then yes, I am anti-semitic.

2) If “semitism” is committing terrible acts of violence and framing someone else for them, then yes, I am anti-semitic.

3) If “semitism” is compromising the USA government through blackmail and other threats, then yes, I am anti-semitic.

4) If “semitism” is imprisoning millions of improvised and brutalized people, cutting off all basic necessities for life, then yes, I am antisemitic.

5) If “semitism” is taking billions in aid from the USA and then murdering Americans with impunity, then yes, I am anti-semitic.

6) If “semitism” is ignoring all UN Resolutions critical of you and then using the same UN to raise trumped-up charges against an INNOCENT nation, then yes, I am anti-semitic.

7) If “semitism” is coercing the USA government and fooling the American people into attacking an INNOCENT nation, costing millions of innocent lives, including American soldiers, then yes, I am anti-semitic.

8) If “semitism” is attacking unarmed humanitarian ships in INTERNATIONAL waters, murdering at least nine people, including an American, shot FOUR times in the head, then yes, I am anti-semitic.

9) If “semitism” is thinking that you are a master and superior race that has to answer to NO one, then yes, I am anti-semitic.

10) If “semitism” is taking American tax dollars and then sptting in America’s face, then yes, I am anti-semitic.

11) If “semitism” is suppressing any and all discussion of high crimes against humanity then yes, I am anti-semitic.

12) If “semitism” is constant lying and deception to achieve a goal that is illegal and immoral then yes, I am anti-semitic.

13) If “semitism” is arming yourself to the teeth, threatening other nations with attack AND attacking other nations because they are supposedly armed to the teeth and threatening you, then yes, I am anti-semitic.

14) If “semitism” is staging 911 with the help of traitorous Americansin high positions of power, murdering over 3,000 innocent Americans so that the USA will attack your “enemies” blamed for doing 911(and in the process blackmailing those same officials who helped you pull of 911!) then yes, I am anti-semitic.

15) If “semitism” is calling anyone critical of you or revealing of your actions “anti-semitic” then yes. I am anti-semitic.

Of course, these are not the real definitions of semitism, but “semitism” has become the cloak to shield crimes against humanity! But one thing is clear to me- those throwing this accusation around are the ones who are REALLY dragging REAL semtism though the mud! They are the real anti-semites!

Pathetic, isn't it? I need only have posted this line:

[we need to] try and define just what “semitism” really is so that we can be sure not to be “anti-semitic”.

This is a familiar tactic of anti-semitism, and of totalitarianism everywhere - it's Orwellian Newspeak: to escape a thoroughly warranted accusation, the meaning of the accusation is changed. That's what these 15 points are doing - it's what the Halfway 'discussion' about anti-semitism was doing - it's what so many anti-semites do -- slither away from the charge. It's disgusting and pathetic.

Troofer crisis? Alex Jones and Mike Rivero split....

Seems Alex Jones and Mike Rivero have parted ways. Awww. Alex Jones sacked Mike Rivero? And now Rivero has changed radio station, from GCN to Republican. Rivero did publish but then withdrew an "update" saying Jones wasn't going to publish his interviews or anything anymore. Awwww.

What's the dust-up about? Rivero's anti-semitism? Rivero too overtly promoting fascism and the far-right nuts? What else ccould it be?

Lies Visible (one of Rivero's favoured anti-semitic ranters) over at SmokingMirrors unsurprisingly suggests the disharmony is because of Israeli/Zionist influence. What else would it be, huh? Here's Lies Visible making a typically stupid claim:

When I found out that Israel had done 9/11, The Madrid Train Station and The London Tube, it pretty much rocked my world. Since then, if bad shit happens, I know they are behind it.

No shit! The anti-semite discovers Israel "did" 911, and that 'if bad shit happens, they are behind it.' HAHA - he admits his prejudice! Yet remains convinced of its truth!

Lies Visible is clearly supporting Rivero in his contretemps with Alex Jones. Shock! I wonder where the other leading lights of Troof will fall and what this fallout means. Interesting.

This wouldn't post as a comment (in reply to Marty)

It's true, isn't it? That many jewish people are extraordinarily successful.....and some are just regularly successful....and...others just regular failures. I'm assuming most of that (but why not?)

Jews are found on both sides of the divide: capitalism and communism. Yet that divide doesn't even exist to the anti-semitic conspiracist mindset, preferring as it does to imagine that both communism and capitalism are 'two sides of the same coin': a supposedly false dichotomy entirely fabricated by world jewry to deceive the peons into fighting one another.

As someone whom believes in class and class conflict as a major driving force of history, a socialist and an egalitarian, I see the conspiracist view of 'communism and capitalism being two sides of the same coin' as a complete surrender to capitalism - a conservatism approaching that of the Catholic Church or Islam with their promises of Heaven once one's suffering is done. Completely ridiculous.

I do think I can see the world outside of the binary constraints of (marxist?) class war too. I can think like that in an abstract sense, but I feel as the default so much of what Marx says (rather, what I understand it to say).

In that sense, I couldn't give a fig even if the joooos were in control of the world, or trying to achieve it. What difference would it make? Do Jews face a completely different material reality to anyone else? Have they lived someplace else the last 200,000 years? Are they not descended from a common ancestor with apes, like the rest of us?

I don't think so, somehow. Call it intuition? lol

I think it's all completely ridiculous. Like capitalism and socialism are 'the same thing'! Note that this accusation comes from moral and intellectual pygmies - not some radical school of new rejectionists of old modernity proposing something truly new. Such accusations only come from.........capitalists. anti-socialists. Libertarians! HA - what a name. American libertarians are jumped-up radical capitalists - without fail in my experience.

Libertarianism is the umbilical between anarchism and capitalism. Libertarianism and anarchism are frauds imo. My first real political thought was to recognise myself an anarchist. Then I started learning. I'm no anarchist. [I would rather be free of all laws too, but, I'm a realist, moral, constructive. Why abandon the golden rule? Why shouldn't you face disincentives to do so? Just like why shouldn't petrol burn? Why should we get hungry? Ideally, you should be able to do what you want, never go hungry and petrol should only burn if you want it to. But the universe isn't like that. Certainly not yet, at least.]

I'm very grateful to my socialism for providing me a way to see the prevalence of present-day anti-semitism. Without my socialism I suspect I wouldn't have had the nonce to see through what people (like Mr Rivero) were telling me.

That's pretty depressing when acknowledging so few people seem genuinely socialist. But, that's what one should expect, I guess - anti-semitism in an anti-socialist world. I see some of Marx's apparent anti-semitism through that perspective : jewish perspectives are formed from the same material conditions that everyone else's are formed from, and Marx was scathing enough of those, so why not of Jews? Of course, as with all peoples of any identity, jews have their own particular story, but nevertheless, why shouldn't Marx be as scornful of their particularities as he was of everyone else's? Dead simple - Marx did not think jews were responsible for capitalism nor did he think Jews were necessarily any different from any other people, essentially. blah blah blah. The guy was a radical materialist, charges of racism seem ridiculous. If Marx had lived post-Hitler (!) would he have used such phrasing as he did? I don't believe it for a second.

But, yes, this (anti-semitic) conspiracism lark of communism being 'the other side of the coin' to capitalism? The people whom say this - conspiracists - mean it in the sense that the dichotomy between socialism and capitalism is entirely false and that a whole world of intellectual blunders have been made because of this misunderstanding. And to them it isn't a misunderstanding, it's a purposefully created falsehood - 'a false dichotomy' - and all part of 'the grand plan' which has used the entire (false) 'socialism versus capitalism' thing as part of its grand plan for world domination. The battle between labour and capital - the class war - it's a mere distraction. Apparently.

This is the basic rationale of wide swathes of opinion on the internet - although the extent of obvious anti-semitism differs throughout the various renderings of this grand tale. Nevertheless, even the least anti-semitic radical conspiracism tends to rely and reiterate the exact same 'information' and 'research' found at the most radical far-right, racist, fascist elements - Stormfront, the Klan, neo-Nazism, etc.

In ways the less obviously offensive outlets are the more dangerous: people let their guard down. The far-right and anti-semitism - shorn of swaztikas and searchlights - are pernicious, gossipy, soundbite-y, simplistic. INNOCUOUS. The far-right is well-aware of this, much more so than even the politically motivated 'average net user'. The far-right is extreme - and hence those that form it are necessarily very committed. The far-right exploits it and few are even aware it happens. (I openly and proudly declare myself as a socialist - and as a democrat. My commitment to democracy means I must declare my position as a socialist - and my position as a socialist means I must declare my democracy. Why would I wish to deceive anyone? Much of the far-right is dishonest, and refuses to admit its commitment and principles. They know their own views are shameful and unpopular. Whereas 'unpopular socialism' is an oxymoron, in principle, at least.)

Socialism and democracy and very closely linked. How could you have one without the other, really? Instead we have a semblance of democracy, wherein private finance protects and promotes special interests - and class interest. That's the deal? And so the jewish lobby, jewish culture, jewish people are amongst it. Along with everyone else. Big deal.

There's a clear anti-semitism when people try to suggest only jewish people are susceptible to - and the sole cause of - all these events and circumstances. It's ridiculous.

But what does one have left if one rejects socialism as a true alternative to capitalism? What else but ridicule can there be for anyone whom suggests socialism and capitalism are 'the same thing'? The people whom say this consider themselves without an ideology. I find that really quite amusing. No ideology? Apart from the ideologies that hold it is possible to operate as a human without an ideology?!

I have no ideology! There's no left or right! So they say. [They broaden this into a scheme (absent ideology!) of capitalism equalling communism(the same thing, two sides of the same coin, etc)]

Invariably such schemes lead straight to hardcore anti-semitism. Pursue any of the the lines and there's an anti-semitism to be found. At least, that's how it seems to me.

I'd argue conspiracism has a very, very close bond to anti-semitism : anti-semitism often takes the form of conspiracism and conspiracism seem invariably to be anti-semitic at its core. The overlap is obvious, even if one can imagine a conspiracism without anti-semitism. The position of conspiracist is a plausible one for someone whom isn't anti-semitic, maybe. However, adopting the ideas and methods of conspiracism make one more inclined towards anti-semitism simply because much of the narrative of anti-semitism is that of a conspiracy. It's form is the same narrative Hitler used to propel his new German myth. The neo-Nazis and plenty of others still believe this tripe. And it is already seeded and dispersed throughout the so-called 911 Truth Movement, the Patriot Movement and even apparently traditional socialist, liberal and conservative redoubts. Why wouldn't it?

http://dontclickonthislink.com