Counterpunch Shadowboxes and Loses
Edward Curtin
Image source here
In a fair boxing match, opponents enter the ring with similarly padded gloves and battle under the bright lights for the world to see. There are, of course, cases where one fighter cheats, as in the infamous case in 1983 when Luis Resto wore weakly padded gloves and hand wraps hardened with plaster to make them rock solid. His opponent, Billy Collins, an up-and-coming boxer from Tennessee with a 14-0 record, was permanently and very seriously injured in the fight at Madison Square Garden. His eyes were battered shut and his vision damaged. He never fought again and died depressed the following year at age twenty-two.
In the fight for truth in the public arena, similar subterfuges occur.
To battle honestly in the open forum, to argue to and fro squarely, is often prevented in advance by eliminating an opponent’s voice from the debate. This is the typical method used by the corporate mass media that stack the deck with sycophants and refuse dissidents a place to voice their ideas.
Then there is the masquerade of fighting an opponent who is really a collaborator and benefactor, whose punches one counters in a game of shadow boxing meant to convince the audience that the fight is real and you are on their side. Some alternative media use this technique because they are gatekeepers for the power elite.
Sometimes this ruse is so blatant that the fix becomes transparent because the smart-asses who play this game screw up, yet they still expect their real opponents to shut up and walk away because their fixer’s mantra is “Never apologize, never explain.” It has always been the code of the rich and powerful.
Some are brawlers, however, and fight back against this bullshit.
The well-known leftist website Counterpunch is an example of the “never apologize, never explain” school. A number of writers and journalists who have published many pieces at Counterpunch have been banned from the site in recent years without an explanation, Andre Vltchek and C.J. Hopkins being two who crossed an invisible boundary the Shadow had drawn and were never again published by Counterpunch. Others, smelling an odd odor, have walked away. The numbers are growing.
I’ve recently seen Counterpunch shadowbox and the Shadow won.
On January 29, 2019, I published an article highly critical of the CIA (The CIA Then and Now: Old Wine in New Bottles) that was posted at Global Research the same day. Lew Rockwell picked it up the next day. The Greanville Post and Dissident Voice posted it on the 30th. Then The Unz Review published it on January 31, 2019. Five ideologically diverse websites that saw value in a harsh and complicated critique of the spy agency. Other sites would also publish it in the following days, including Off-Guardian. After the piece appeared, I received an email from the editor of Counterpunch, Jeffrey St Clair, telling me that he too was going to publish this article on Friday, February 1, for Counterpunch’s weekend edition.
I had written a few dozen pieces that Counterpunch had published and had a very cordial relationship with St Clair. In fact, when I was in Rome in 2018, he had asked me to place a stone for him on Keats’ and Shelley’s graves when I visited the cemetery where they were buried. I did that, and my wife took photos that I sent to him. All was copacetic. Buddies. High fives!
On February 1, 2019, shortly after midnight Eastern time (12:02 AM), Counterpunch published my piece for their weekend edition where articles remain for three days. When I awoke at 4 A.M., I saw it. Then at 8 A. M., when I arrived at the college where I teach, I again saw it. At 11 A.M., when I had finished teaching a few classes, I looked again and it had disappeared. Transitive verb: Counterpunch had disappeared it. Eliminated it. Scratched it. Excised it.
All the other numerous articles remained. Only mine was gone. At first I thought it was a mistake. But as the day wore on I wondered. So I emailed St Clair and asked my buddie what had happened. As compatriots don’t do, he did not reply. But I assumed he was busy, as I am, and gets many emails. So I waited. When I emailed him again, there was no reply. A third very cordial email three days later went unanswered.
Unlike Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot, I am no longer waiting. No reply is coming, and St Clair isn’t Godot, or on second thought he may be, a chimerical leftist gatekeeper enticing Counterpunch’s followers to wait forever for a revelation that isn’t coming. Like his mentor and the founder of Counterpunch, Alexander Cockburn, who was so fond of excoriating as “idiots” and “conspiracy nuts” anyone questioning the JFK assassination or the attacks of September 11, 2001 – two fundamental issues that only believers in official government conspiracy theories such as Cockburn could dismiss – St Clair seems similarly dismissive of explaining why a writer’s critique of the CIA would deserve to be eliminated from their front page after being published. As if only an idiot would want to know.
However, any reasonable person would ask: Why would he not respond? St Clair, the editor-in-chief, published the piece and then disappeared it after 10-11 hours? This is highly unusual, to put it mildly. Unprecedented for the so-called left-wing alternative media. It is the kind of thing when done by the mainstream corporate media would be denounced and exposed as censorship. Not publishing an article is a publication’s prerogative, of course, but what could cause one to eliminate an article highly critical of the CIA after people had ten or so hours to read it, and since the author and editor had a very cordial relationship up to that point and the editor had days to read it carefully?
Having eliminated the piece from their front page weekend edition where it could have been viewed by readers for four days while that page was available, they subsequently dumped it into their archives where the only reader who would later see it would be one who knew about it and went looking for it by title or author’s name. Very few would have reason to do that, of course, though readers of this article may be among the few. Censors often have a bag of tricks that allow for plausible denial after the fact.
One doesn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to realize that someone objected to the piece. But who could that be? If it were St Clair’s managing editor, Joshua Frank, twenty years his junior (the two run the operation), then St Clair could have explained to me why, since we were on good terms. I wouldn’t have liked it and argued my points, but at least we could have cordially agreed to disagree. But the Frank possibility makes no sense, for a managing editor would be intimately involved in the publishing process that was completed the previous day in time for the very early Friday A.M. postings. And in any case, St Clair is in charge.
Clearly an outside reader objected. The question is: Who is that reader who could exert such control over a publication that promotes itself as one that “Tells the Facts, Names the Names”? A publication that is considered radically leftist and in opposition to the ruling elites.
Okay, Counterpunch, would you name the name of the shadowy one who won this fight?
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“To battle honestly in the open forum, to argue to and fro squarely, is often prevented in advance by eliminating an opponent’s voice from the debate.” That reminds me of the time when I visited Edward’s website in order to call him out on his Camelot propaganda and had my comments disappeared. Right Edward?
CounterPunch has sucked for at least the last 3 or so years. I get the impression Joshua Frank is the problem. He is rather intolerant of contributors who don’t share his opinions. If you aren’t a Russiaphobe like Frank is, for example–then you are not welcome at CounterPunch. He had an extremely ugly meltdown with CJ Hopkins awhile back, that was all published on Unz.com. While I used to always read the CounterPunch weekend edition, I have blown them off for the past year or so because they have driven away all the writers I used to like at their site: Mike Whitney, Diana Johnstone, Linh Dinh, Michael Hudson, etc. The CounterPunch of today reminds me of The Intercept: both are fake-left gatekeepers, and are not to be trusted. People on the left need to be very careful with the leftist sites they read these days. I think there is a great deal of moles and gatekeepers that have infiltrated the leftist website media. CounterPunch and The Intercept are good examples of this type of corruption.
You nailed it. Both CounterPunch and the Intercept have a few good articles, but have acted quite fishy over the last few years, causing me to barely ever check them out anymore (when they used to be in my daily rotation). Two observations:
1) They increasingly suck.
2) In a suspicious way.
When I saw a comment by StClair comparing Putin to Trump as being “irrational impulsive and petulant” I was completely stunned, as i cannot think of three less suitable words to describe Putin. I have no confidence in his judgment on Russia.
To say the least. The folks at The Grayzone seems solid enough (and if they’ve come around to rejecting darkness, that’s good), but they (Max, Rania, Ben) do have a spotty history as progressives. I would not have dived into that subject were it not for some things about Max’s recent book, “The Management Of Savagery,” that I found to be off. (See my blog post titled “Progressives – part 5.” / https://arrby.wordpress.com/2020/02/01/progressives-part-5/
I find The Grayzone to be a source of much good info, for sure. I quite enjoyed a live show they did and used my Avidemux to make an excerpt of it, presenting a discussion of the wayward Intercept and Democracy Now. See it here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/Fplk1krlezfC/
And for your amusement: https://arrby.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/never-meet-your-heroes-they-say-is-this-why/
I make similar points all the time. Without even intending to I ended up making such points (leftwing traitors and gatekeepers for the establishment) in a series of blog posts titled “Progressives.” That’s the world we live in – for now. I also deleted my link (on my blog) to Michael Hudson. He belongs to that awful, fakey International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. I like Michael and always enjoyed listening to him or reading his articles. But it occurs to me that, as I don’t know economics and have to trust others to inform on economics, it makes no sense to trust Michael on economics, or anything, now that I know that he’s a member of ICIJ, which I ‘do’ know is bad. I have arrived, sadly, at the point where I think that among self-identified progressives, only a minority is genuine.
From Counterpunch to Kosher Punch… just another Guardian of Judea..pathetic yet symptomatic…
Why has CounterPunch spiked Andre Vltchek’s ‘Lies of the Empire’?
by Ramin Mazaheri
https://countercurrents.org/2019/03/02/why-has-counterpunch-spiked-andre-vltcheks-lies-of-the-empire/
The problem with Counterpunch is that they only have Remainiacs writing for them about the EU now it seems like, right wingers like John Wight and Alexander Cockburn, right wingers who think they are on the left, but of course they are not as EU-lovers. Now they got their will it seems like, another election, like always with EU.
Counterpunch is all right, no need to write it off totally. Even The Guardian has some decent stuff once in a while.
Could I suggest to the administrators, that the debate here between myself and “crank”, “mark”, “barovsky”, and others, on “anti-semitism” and related subjects, be extracted, and posted as an independent article? I’ve provided some extensive references, which I think merit consideration, even by those who strongly disagree with them.
Articles are ‘must reads’. Just spent most of afternoon reading them – thanks for links.
Personally, I would rather see OffG re-publish something by Israel Shamir.
I doubt very much that they will.
As you wrote, there is a lot that is made sense of by considering this aspect of history, one that it’s basically forbidden to talk about. One bit of the story that is not on your condensed list and which got me interested in this area was the Piper theory about the Kennedy killings. It ties up the contradictions.
Similarly, I rejected any serious consideration of the ‘cult’ connection to 9/11 for many years, long after I had been fully persuaded that the official story was bunk. I simply regarded any argument in that direction as driven by a prejudiced racism. Now I know different, and it really is beyond dispute that Bolyn et al have uncovered the truth of the matter. Only a fear of ‘antisemitism’ (really, fear of being consumed by one’s own racism) stopped the truth movement as a whole from recognising the obvious.
I counted up how many fairly distinct ways in which the term ‘antisemitism’ is used in modern discourse. I got to 14 – the last one being that it is increasingly considered antisemitic to discuss anything at all concerning Jewishness, Jewish individuals or Jewish organisations in a political context, if you are not yourself Jewish, no matter what your opinion.
A way to go. I do still believe somewhere in the power of education.
Again, excellent links.
Interesting how things here have veered off into an UNZ Review type comment thread about the Jews, with Milosevic offering up the standard UNZ Review “revisionism” on death camps. You don’t see this kind of stuff on blogs that are outside the conspiracist bubble. This 9/11 inside job, Faurisson, Jews control the world sort of thing is just the kind of flower that grows from the conspiracist soil. David Icke and the late Lyndon Larouche mined this vein to the hilt. Leon Trotsky had a good take on the subculture that pervades UNZ Review and the mindset of people like Milosevic:
“Fascism has opened up the depths of society for politics. Today, not only in peasant homes but also in city skyscrapers, there lives alongside of the twentieth century the tenth or the thirteenth. A hundred million people use electricity and still believe in the magic power of signs and exorcisms. The Pope of Rome broadcasts over the radio about the miraculous transformation of water into wine. Movie stars go to mediums. Aviators who pilot miraculous mechanisms created by man’s genius wear amulets on their sweaters. What inexhaustible reserves they possess of darkness, ignorance, and savagery! Despair has raised them to their feet fascism has given them a banner. Everything that should have been eliminated from the national organism in the form of cultural excrement in the course of the normal development of society has now come gushing out from the throat; capitalist society is puking up the undigested barbarism. Such is the physiology of National Socialism”
What Is National Socialism?, June 1933
Just a couple of years back Louis, I might have agreed with you with regard to Jewish power.
(9/11 has been a litmus test for credibility for me for at least a decade, so that you seem to still believe the official 9/11 story, in effect bars you from any serious consideration.)
But the facts, in the end, speak for themselves. The opponents of the arguments put forward by Unz, Shamir, Atzmon and the many documented (mainly Jewish) opinions in the volumous linked material in this thread, only have smear by association, and accusations of racism as a response. This is not an argument against the facts, it is not intellectually credible.
“There is a principal which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance — that principal is contempt prior to investigation.” Spencer.
What is National Socialism ? It is the very same mindset of blood and soil fanatacism, the very same racial supremicism, the very same claims of ‘god ordained rights’ of one people over all people that is critiqued in When Victims Rule.
It is quite fitting that the discussion turned to this from CPs alleged editorial actions, as the cross posting with Unz seems to have been the sticky issue for CP editors. This controversy of Jewish power and it’s unmentionable status, is, arguably, at the heart of the dispute involving Hopkins, Johnstone and now Curtin, as it is at the centre of so very many other issues.
Milosevic offering up the standard UNZ Review “revisionism” on death camps
The only thing I said about the subject is that the “six million” Official Story is without factual basis, which certainly doesn’t imply that a lot of people didn’t die, of various causes. If you are acquainted with any serious evidence to support that number, you might reference it, but of course you won’t, because there isn’t any. So all you’ve got is the standard slurs and insults. (even Raul Hilberg suggests the real number is closer to five million. Is he a “revisionist”, or a “neo-nazi”?)
http://holocausthandbooks.com/dl/03-tgwfoc.pdf
Meanwhile, people much more principled than yourself, have done serious research and discovered that “six million” suffering Jews is a number with some kind of numerological significance, which has been frequently reported in the mainstream press since well before the FIRST World War. In the absence of any meaningful evidence that this number is factually related to the real history of the Second World War, it seems quite safe to assume that this is its actual origin.
https://archive.org/details/SIXMILLIONOPENGATESByS.A.R.Lynch271/
There’s a pattern which people like you always fail to recognize, which is that somebody questions some unquestionable Official Story, and you respond with slurs and insults, because that’s all you’ve got (see: 9/11 denialism in general), which then provokes them into providing the factual evidence which reveals you to be a fool, a liar, and a power-serving shill. You might have done better to keep your mouth shut; whoever it is that holds your leash is eventually going to become dissatisfied with your services.
the mindset of people like Milosevic
I’ll leave you to guess how much I care about the opinions of people who offer their services as “left-wing” shills for the Empire’s death squads in Syria. “Left-wing” disinformationism is a declining industry; you might want to start looking for another occupation. Maybe AIPAC would be interested in hiring people with a proven track record, like yourself. Or maybe they already have.
Even the crimes of the Nazis fade into seeming insignificance, in relation to the Jewish genocide committed by the Roman Empire, as recounted in the Babylonian Talmud:
For those counting, (400 * 400 * 400) is, of course, sixty-four million, and those were just the (male?) child victims in just one city. Latter-day holocausts seem almost humane, by comparison. (Surely the Palestinian goyim have nothing to complain about!)
This was at a time when the population of Rome itself was approximately one million. Such Official Stories are evidently the product of an intellectual culture for which historical or numerical accuracy is not a primary, or even a secondary, concern.
A modern footnote for “400 synagogues * 400 teachers * 400 pupils” helpfully explains, “this is obviously a conventional expression for ‘very many’.” One wonders if there could be alternative expressions for ‘very many’, such as “100 * 200 * 300”, for example.
Here’s some opinions of Leon Trotsky that you won’t ever see quoted by the “left-wing” 9/11 Deniers:
It seems like accusations of “darkness, ignorance, and savagery” should be directed towards those who believe in miraculous — and miraculously opportune — Reichstag Fires, rather than those who take the trouble to point out their actual sordid origins, and are rewarded for their efforts with this sort of vile insults. But that would be a mistake, a result of confusing people who actually believe in mediaeval superstitions, with those who only pretend to believe in them, because they are paid to. An example of the former would be the Empire’s death squads in Syria, whereas the latter are more likely to be found living safely in New York, producing Imperial propaganda, crudely disguised as its opposite.
(* miraculously opportune: “a catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor” — Project For The New American Century, September 2000)
As I said below, “we need to consider the idea that a large part of what has traditionally been thought of as ‘left-wing’ politics, since approximately 1917, is actually a sophisticated camouflage operation, intended to disguise the activities of a nasty ethnic supremacist cult, left over from the European Middle Ages.”
It’s rather unusual that one makes a provocative observation like this, and is then immediately presented with a living example of exactly the phenomenon described. Maybe miracles actually do happen, sometimes.
Milosovic, your comment:
Reinforces my view that people like Tariq ‘Assad has to go’ Ali, fit very neatly into this view, namely that what passes for a left in the imperialist world, is in fact very much a part of the imperialist world view of the rest of the planet, a ‘left’ that never stops telling the rest of the world what to do, the ‘we know best’ position. Thus the Trotskyists take the position that either it’s a full-blooded ‘Bolshevik’ revolution in Syria or it’s a fake. The ‘all or nothing position’, which means we shouldn’t have supported Nasser’s Egypt when he nationalised the Suez Canal (he also outlawed the Communist Party), or we shouldn’t have supported independence movements in Africa because they weren’t ‘real’ revolutions! Tell that to Kwame Nkrumah or Eduardo Mondlane. It’s the arrogance of the Tariq Ali’s that really piss me off.
Good attempt at changing the subject!
You are always safely within the mainstream reality bubble of what is ‘safe’ to talk about. And you smugly look down your nose at those who would question mainstream narratives about 9-11, Jewish influence in politics, and the Holocaust? You know who you remind me of? That corporate talkshow windbag Bill Maher, only he’s a bit more edgy than you. Anybody who actually believes the official 9-11 narrative of a bunch of Saudis pulling that off needs their head examined. The official 9-11 narrative is so full of holes and glaring omissions as to be a farcical conspiracy theory in itself. As for your straw man ‘Jews control the world’ bromide, only you come across as afraid and clueless. Go and watch ‘The Israel Lobby’ documentary–the documentary done by Al Jazeera. You know, the one Israel tried so hard to block access to. To deny the massive, powerful influence of the Jewish lobby in the UK and USA is laughably naive. Look at the rash of anti-BDS laws being passed in more than half of the USA’s states. You convince nobody.
I’ve been asked whether I consider Zionism being intrinsically anti-Semitic.
Well, next step, you’ll call gefilte fish – antisemitic))
Is Islamism anti-Muslim? Were Ustasha anti-Catholic? Was Shin Fein anti-Irish? Was NSDAP anti-German?
I think it is too paradoxical!
And I am very grateful for references to my writing!
QED, I think.
Thanks for your important work.
“crank”:
Thank you for all the links. Educative.
It takes some intellectual integrity to think clearly and speak truthfully in hysterical times like these. So I for one appreciate the honesty.
As I said here previously, we need to consider the idea that a large part of what has traditionally been thought of as “left-wing” politics, since approximately 1917, is actually a sophisticated camouflage operation, intended to disguise the activities of a nasty ethnic supremacist cult, left over from the European Middle Ages. As Israel Shamir says, when this cult lost its elite economic niche in the general collapse of Eastern European feudalism, it entered into an alliance of convenience with the rising European and North American left.
This alliance greatly aided the cult in its struggle to regain its elite status in the societies to which it had emigrated, which was mostly accomplished by the 1970s. Since then, it has no further need of left-wing movements, and has largely discarded them, but is careful to maintain its ideological agents within the used-up remnants, to prevent discovery of either its historical or current activities.
Like you (I presume), I was once an adherent of the Chomsky Theory of zionism, as propounded in this very discussion. Wherein Israel is postulated to be an instrument of US imperialism, an “outpost” or “launchpad”, etc. What I could not understand on the basis of this theory, was the genocidal violence against the Palestinians, who have nothing that the US wants, but even more so, the overwhelming support offered for these atrocities by the cult membership OUTSIDE of Israel, when it is clear that a settlement on the 1967 borders is both available, and most likely to assure the future security of Israel.
I eventually found an explanation for this mystery in the references which I am now offering, which are obviously the work of people other than myself. (many of them are “ex-jews”, a phenomenon which occurred even in the Middle Ages — Baruch Spinoza, etc — even though, according to the racialist ideology of the cult, such resignations are impossible. Gilad Atzmon, Israel Shamir, Shlomo Zand…)
In order to even begin to address not just the issue of Palestine, but a wide range of problems on a world scale, we need to recover a lot of deeply suppressed history:
— the actual role of the cult in mediaeval Poland and Ukraine
— the actual role of the cult in the 1917 Russian Revolution, and associated phenomena of the international “communist” movement
— the actual role of the cult in the truly mediaeval barbarism of the Stalin regime in Russia, especially the deliberately-created famine in Ukraine and other places in the 1930s
— the actual history of the persecution of ethnic Jews during the Second World War, which seems to have been grossly distorted (“six million” is a pure fabrication, with no factual basis whatsoever), and the completely impermissible idea that this may have been to some extent, a reaction to the barbarism of the Stalin regime and its ethnic activists
— the actual role of the cult’s worldwide operatives obtaining both the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and the creation of the State of Israel in 1948
— the actual role of the cult’s academic operatives, beginning in the 1970s, in the creation and promotion of the anti-rational fads of Post-Modernism and Identity Politics, which have now succeeded in utterly discrediting left-wing politics, probably for the next generation
— the actual role of the cult, also beginning in the 1970s, in the promotion of neoliberalism, the Chicago School of Economics, the Shock Doctrine, the Chilean coup d’etat of 1973, the DotCom bubble, the 2008 financial crash, the Madoff Fund swindle, the ten-trillion-dollar bank bailout, etc
— probably most importantly, the actual role of the cult, in the form of “neoconservativism” and the Project For The New American Century, in the false-flag 9/11 event and related phenomena, and the never-ending Terror War, for which they serve as the essential pretext, the “catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor” (as requested by PNAC, almost exactly one year before delivery)
anyway. These references succeeded in illuminating the above subjects for me, and made sense of things which I had never previously been able to understand. I would urge you, and anybody else who finds them of interest, and is not intellectually crippled by fear of “anti-semitism”, to disseminate them as widely as possible. Very little that is useful can be done, until these deliberately-created myths and intellectual barriers are overcome.
here is one more anti-semitic reference, which extensively documents some of the subjects above. ethnic activists can shriek and howl all they want, but this research is verifiable, and it succeeds in de-camouflaging some very large elephants in important rooms, and blowing very large holes in a number of essential Official Stories.
When Victims Rule — A Critique of Jewish Pre-Eminence in America
Israel Shamir, on the above:
Occam’s Razor
Since you say you know Israel Shamir personally, why not discuss it with him?
Milosovic, I think I already told you I’d email him and I did but I still await a response from him.
I never got it, sorry! (unless by other name?)
Sorry again, indeed I found the email, and here is my reply.
I’ve been asked whether I consider Zionism being intrinsically anti-Semitic.
Well, next step, you’ll call gefilte fish – antisemitic))
Is Islamism anti-Muslim? Were Ustasha anti-Catholic? Was Shin Fein anti-Irish? Was NSDAP anti-German?
I think it is too paradoxical!
Here is a longer take:
The Jewish law has a sensible rule: “Minhag Israel din hu”, meaning ‘Israel (that is Jewish umma) acts righteously”, the way Jews act is the way of Jewish law.
Provided that majority of Jews accept Zionism, it is not against them.
The way out of this problem is to invoke the erevrav thesis, saying that a lot of Jews are not real Jews but (spiritual or real) descendants of gentiles who accompanied Children of Israel on their way out of bondage. This is a Jewish analog of takfir, of declaring somebody kaffir among Muslims.
So there is no easy answer for your question. If pushed for an answer, I’d say, no, Zionism is not antisemitism, and anti-Zionism is not antisemitism either. Say No to takfir))
@Eric Blair (Feb, 23, 2019)
Edward Curtin put forward his case being exclusively factual and using only moderate expressions. While Your comment, Eric Blair, is nothing but a chain of not ending insults and disparages.
Here some of Your insults, Eric Blair:
“Curtain is being paranoid. ”
“Curtain …deliberately manufactured controversy in order to slam Counterpunch ”
“Curtain … only makes himself look paranoid and unhinged”
“Curtain or other negative bandwagon jumpers..”
“Curtain… lesser idiots”
“makes you an ego-driven fool in your own right”
“My advice to Edward Curtain: …get that paranoia in check.”
“wingnut ranter with a chip on your shoulder”.
Also that arrogance, You, Eric Blair, put forward with: “My advice to Edward Curtain…“. -Yes, Your “advice” – oh, my God!
It is easy to see, that You, Eric Blair, obviously just do a job, You were ordered to do.
Oh, yes, may be I am now also “paranoid and unhinged” or a “wingnut ranter” and so on.
But it is obvious that You, Eric Blair – except for endless insults – fearfully avoid to even pick up the only case Edward Curtain put forward here: And Curtain’s case is, that after his article was treated in an ‘unusual way’ by Counterpunch, he contacted – in a friendly way – several times the responsible people or the people within the hierarchy. People he had always had good relations to. AND EACH TIME THEY REFUSED TO ANSWER!
As an attorney, who during his life had a lot of divorce cases and legal employment cases, I can tell You, that it was always a point that never left the judges unimpressed, if a husband refused to talk to his wife any more (ore vice versa).
Or if a boss or a direct superior refused to talk to the employee any more. In the letter case, not seldom, it could be proved that there was a case of “mobbing”.
I have a problem with Edward Curtain but I had no problem with his above article. It was interesting and informative, if not a happy article.
Curtain is being paranoid. Frank and St. Clair responded to his accusations HERE.
Counterpunch has done some stupid stuff, like stop publishing certain writers (Andre Vltchek, Diana Johnstone, Caitlin Johnstone and CJ Hopkins) because of ideological and style differences while continuing to publish that caustic fool Louis Proyect and other low quality contributors. For this they deserve, and have received, substantial criticism. But Curtain who, for whatever reason, deliberately manufactured controversy in order to slam Counterpunch only makes himself look paranoid and unhinged, thereby damaging his own credibility. It’s almost as embarrassing to behold as Eric Zuesse’s ridiculous “take down” of Chomsky. These kind of stunts put them on par with St. Clair and Counterpunch whose actions divide the left even further and help its ideological enemies.
At the end of the day Counterpunch is basically an aggregator that publishes a variety of writers – some very good ones and some mediocre ones. This makes it still worth reading. It is unfortunate that its publisher, and his sidekick Joshua Frank, are self-righteous boneheads but that doesn’t make Curtain or other negative bandwagon jumpers lesser idiots. Two wrongs don’t make a right and manufacturing a fake controversy just so you can have a go at an egotistical magazine publisher, who you’ve personally had no problems with before, makes you an ego-driven fool in your own right.
My advice to Edward Curtain: take a break from the politics, dude, and get that paranoia in check. Seriously. You’ve written some really good stuff that I’ve enjoyed and passed on to others, like the essay about Serpico, reflecting on your trip to Montreal and the conversation you had with the homeless chap you met in a southern state (can’t recall which one atm) and it would be a shame if you turned into a wingnut ranter with a chip on your shoulder.
They say: ‘only a certain number of articles can fit into our jam-packed Weekend Edition lineup.’ And that Curtain’s article fell off.
How often does that happen at counterpunch? The editors don’t show other examples. I never saw articles fell of when I was still looking at counterpunch for interesting articles.
Think it is a weird excuse. It could be true, but how likely is it that articles fall of?
What is also weird is that the counterpunch editors demand an apology from Curtin. Apology for what? Prior to writing the article above, Curtin asked the editor why his article dissappeared from counterpunch. As he received no reply, Curtin decided to sort things out for himself. Should he apologize for sorting things out for himself and making his thoughts known in the open?
At best, all could be a misunderstanding. But since the editors demand an apology from Curtin for speaking out his own mind, I don’t believe this is all a misunderstanding.
Eric, every writer you mentioned, aside from Andre (who we decided to stop publishing for a number of reasons) left on their own accord. Caitlin Johnstone never wrote for us.
I do not remember leaving you on my own accord. But I do remember being slandered by Project.
What are those “number of reasons and I think Eric was talking about Diana Johnstone.
You’re a fucking, boring, pretentious, know-nothing, presumptuous, self-appointed mind-reading, shallow punk.
Good bye, Counterpunch. You fired your best writers and ended up as Guardian Lite. You were all over the place on Ukraine and Syria. Your editor’s ego has grown so pathetically large that he lists all the music he is currently listenting to, as if we give a damn. Thanks for the article link Edward and all the literature you recommend. Thanks too to C.J. Hopkins for his continuously brilliant writing.
All over the place on Ukraine and Syria? Are you out of your mind? For every one I wrote, there were dozens of the sort that appear here. Including from Patrick Cockburn, Robert Fisk, Jonathan Cooke, Seymour Hersh, John Wight, et al. You can’t stand it that for every 20 film reviews I write, there is one dealing with Syria or Ukraine. Is the “axis of resistance” so flaccid that it cannot stand a single article debunking it? I guess so.
It is complete hogwash to object to be published at Unz , just because there are indeed a few loonies there. I do believe that Unz has made it a policy to publish almost anything that is controversial…… And is that not the idea of a free and open press. The main thing is to get the message out, no matter how, if Volkischer Beobacheter acceps your article, fine. Journos and blogger cant be to critical, then they play the “Deep States” own game and on their rules. Idiotic.
There are many very sensible readers at Unz, dont be mistaken about that (read comments), dogmas exists, because they can maybe be broken. How long have modern man walked the Earth? Well officially, only 200 000 years, but indications point at much longer, which completely rocks the boat.
And that is the purpose: To rock the boat. Ingrained and overgrown beliefs.
Galileo had a hard time too.
Rock the boat, no matter how.
No idea whether it has anything to do with the “non-removal removal” of Ed Curtin’s piece, but, as one can see by Louis Proyect’s comments, the CounterPunch boys have a bit of an obsession with The Unz Review, which is odd, given that CounterPunch has accepted large amounts of money from Unz. Here’s an addendum to my September 2018 essay (also published here at OffGuardian): https://consentfactory.org/2018/09/29/how-to-maliciously-smear-your-critics-and-not-get-away-with-it/
“In an amusing twist to the events recounted above, it turns out the CounterPunch Red-Brown hunters who are so fond of smearing writers like myself as “far-right shills” and “anti-Semites” based on the fact that we allow our essays to be posted in The Unz Review have themselves been lavishly funded by Ron Unz. Here are several public foundation records documenting Ron Unz’s contributions to CounterPunch in 2009, 2013, and 2015, totaling $75,000. And these are just the records I was able to easily find online in five minutes of googling. Not that I care who CounterPunch takes money from. (Accepting contributions from someone does not imply that you share all their views any more than being published by them does.) I just happen to find it particularly hilarious that these sanctimonious, smear-happy bullies are attempting to play the guilt-by-association game by associating the targets of their smears with a person they are associated with themselves, and have taken large amounts of money from. It’s not every day you come across that kind of utterly shameless hypocrisy.”
A lot has changed with CounterPunch since 2015. I am not privy to all of the editorial deliberations but there a number of people like Le Pen fan Diana Johnstone have been shown the door. My guess is that the obvious bid by the Kremlin to boost fascist movements in Europe such as Le Pen’s National Front became too obvious, like the 800-pound gorilla. In any case, people like Curtin and Hopkins are welcome to UNZ Review since they are not bothered by their articles appear next to ones arguing that the Nazis did not exterminate Jews, that Emmett Till was a thug, that Latinos are genetically inferior, that white farmers in South Africa are in danger of being exterminated, etc. For me, it would be the equivalent of washing my hands in a urinal but that’s just me.
“the obvious bid by the Kremlin to boost fascist movements in Europe such as Le Pen’s National Front became too obvious” – seemingly I’ve missed the elephant in the room – please elucidate.
“Tommy Robinson” and the EDL were getting £10,000 a month in Zionist money.
Wilders and his outfit are in receipt of similar largesse.
They are constantly shilling for Israel.
This is a general pattern.
Most of these neo Nazi outfits are Zionist Fronts, stirring up trouble with moslems to serve Zionist interests.
They even tried to take over the BNP at one stage.
the obvious bid by the Kremlin to boost fascist movements in Europe
Oh, I see where you are coming form now.
La la land.
That really does need explication. Maybe there’s some basis for Louis’s comment. Let’s remember that the Russian government is capitalist, not communist. Ergo…
I agree that there are crazies at UNZ, but they are openly crazy and you can disagree with the crazies at UNZ.
At counterpunch Patrick Cockburn supported Obama’s and later Trump’s red line (Assad gassing his own people). That is a lot worse than crazy as that debunked lie that killed 1000s of people. Disagreeing with his position at counterpunch is difficult as it is only possible through Facebook.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/04/12/how-can-we-know-if-a-chemical-weapons-attack-took-place-in-syria/
Personally, I would not want to be associated with Cockburn for the reason that Cockburn openly supported regime change in Syria.
But publishing at Unz is much worse than on counterpunch, says LouysProject who publishes at counterpunch.
SO you dismiss Johnstone as a “Le Pen fan” along the really childish line of yeah so there. And you are a serious writer?!
Hey CJ, we don’t take $ from Unz anymore. Haven’t in a number of years and don’t plan to in the future. Yes, this is largely due to his hard-right-Holocaust-white-nationalist turn. Cheers.
C.J. Hopkins – Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am literally laughing out loud at those revelations. Absolutely freaking amazing!
And as icing on the cake we get – Louis “regime change” Proyect – visiting us here at OffG to bring us to Jesus with his deep insights regarding why – if the CP boys don’t like “where” one’s work is republished – well, they are simply morally obliged to disappear you!
Even a visit from CP editor Joshua Frank! Geeze, I remember contacting Joshua when CounterPoof published an article that openly attacked anyone on the left who dared ask the obvious question of whether the CIA might in any way be involved with the then current “spontaneous protests” in Iran. Global Research was one target of such venom I recall. Sadly Mr. Frank’s freely shared condescension and his dripping sarcasm had to suffice for an actual rational response to my inquiry and concerns.
CounterPoof has become completely irrelevant to those on the anti-imperialist left, but I’m guessing there is a whole new audience on board that now enjoys reading CounterPoof as soon as the Rachel Maddow “RussiaMania” episode of the day finishes. I’ll even bet “donations” have never been better.
Thanks C.J. You absolutely made my day.
But it’s still a shame that so much energy is being diverted into this debate, about what exactly? That CP is liberal-left, but hasn’t it always been liberal-leftish? It’s published some good stuff and bad and maybe it still does I wouldn’t know, I’ve tried for ages to get an email sub and never arrives, so I gave up.
And now my old pal Lou from my NY Marxist School days back in the 80s, has popped up, one big unhappy family that fights all the time. Meanwhile… the world is going to hell! But isn’t this left in the imperialist world all over? A left that spends more time trying see how many Marxists it can get on to the head of a pin, to paraphrase, than it does getting serious about revolution and it’s been this way for as long as I can remember and I’m 74. And it was the same for my folks, who were both communists and cut their political teeth in the 1930s. It’s really depressing to see all this energy being wasted on Counterpunch eg, writing this.
barovsky – Removing anti-imperialist voices like Diana Johnstone, Andre Vltchek, C.J. Hopkins, and now Ed Curtain hardly equates to a “debate” of any sort I’m familiar with. This is censorship plain and simple. We in the left roundly condemn such censorship by MSM. Why would you suggest doing so when censorship occurs within so called “progressive media” somehow is instead – “energy being wasted?”
An itch that demands to be scratched.
a whole new audience on board that now enjoys reading CounterPoof as soon as the Rachel Maddow “RussiaMania” episode of the day finishes
Shunning and shaming is the coward’s way out. Censorship convinces no one, but does harden opposition. Such tactics are the veneer of a weak argument. In a society which truly values free speech, the proper response to a writer with whom you disagree is to respond with an argument, not censorship.
As to Counterpunch, even if St. Claire and Frank were to truly believe that Russia delivered the presidency to Trump, why fire their own writers who dare to disagree on that point? Why the hatchet job on Caitlin Johnstone? When did Counterpunch become enforcers for the neocon wing of the Democratic Party? Why the jihad against those who see common ground with libertarians in opposing an encroaching police state, celebrating civil rights for all, and opposing horrific foreign wars?
Something just doesn’t add up here.
I am not a CounterPunch editor but if I were, I’d have told Curtin not to crosspost to UNZ Review that is nothing but a neo-Nazi website with some left cover. Here’s an excerpt from a typical article, Linh Dinh’s “Heart of Darkness Germany”:
If not for Jewish power, questioning the Holocaust wouldn’t be a thought crime in 16 European countries. No other event in human history is so fascistically protected from scrutiny. None but the Holocaust, thanks to Jewish power.
Robert Faurisson conclusively dismantled the Nazi gas chamber myth, so Jewish power destroyed his academic career, put him on trial and bankrupted this brave, unflinching man. In 1989, three thugs claiming to be The Sons of the Memory of the Jews attacked the 60-year-old and broke his jaw.
The Holocaust does not explain genocide but enables it, but few dare to say so, for fear of Jewish power.
There are no scientific or even documentary proofs of the Holocaust, so the six million figure is just as much nonsense as the human skin lampshades and human fat soap.
A ‘neo-nazi website’ edited by a man of Jewish descent, Ron Unz ?
Nothing in that quote above is, strictly speaking, ‘neo-nazi’. No Aryan supremicism, no call of allegiance to a fuhrer, no call to arms in a bid to ‘crush the weak’ or other such deranged rhetoric.
You could argue that it is ‘Holocaust denial’ (or holocaust skepeticism), or that such criticism of ‘Jewish Power’ is often a feature of neo-nazi writing- but correlation is not always causation.
Unz, Atzmon, Shamir, …Finkelstein even. There are Jewish voices that recognise a tendency of Jewish elites to organise amongst their own in-group. There are non-Jewish people who agree this argument has a lot of factual support, yet who are at the same time repulsed by anything far right.
Max Blumenthal and Medea Benjamin, among others. Miko Peled. And people like the late Gerald Kaufman and Harold Pinter, who had a belly full of Zionist antics. Glenn Greenwald. And others. Good people who have put their heads above the parapet.
Yeah, Unz was born a Jew but he does not believe that Jews were exterminated in the millions. I’d explain that in the same way I’d explain Black Americans voting for Trump. In any case, if you spend 5 minutes at UNZ Review, you’ll discover that it is filled with racism as well, especially from Ron Unz:
Or consider the fascinating historical case of Emmett Till, mentioned earlier, whose murder in 1955 became the archetypal case of an innocent black youngster lynched by murderous Southern whites, perhaps even lending some inspiration to Harper Lee’s public school classic To Kill a Mockingbird. There was enormous national media coverage of the Till murder, which uniformly reported that the black fourteen-year-old child had merely made rude and provocative remarks to the young wife of a white shopkeeper—a “Wolf whistle”—leading to his abduction and brutal killing. Yet oddly enough, only long afterward did it emerge out that his father, a violent criminal, had been executed for multiple rapes and murder, and that Till himself, weighing 150 pounds and quite large and muscular for his age, also had a violent history. Indeed, these facts had remained totally unknown to me until quite recently.
I wouldn’t argue against the assertion that there are racist articles at unz.com.
Not all racists are ‘neo-nazis’ though.
I wrote a comment on here a couple of weeks back to the effect that I feel ‘politically homeless’. Although I stand opposed to racist ideologies, I am increasingly distanced from the Left’s insistance on policing acceptable discourse, and even policing acceptable thought. In fact I think the Left’s descent into identitarianism is counter to any remaining commitment to a universalist ideal. Whilst the Right are plagued by irrationality and subject to self serving emotion, the Left are often constricting debate with dogma and an obsession with correctness. The Right indulge in racism, the Left seek to enforce policing against it, and endlessly throw accusations around instead of seeking to really understand it.
Is the Talmud a racist set of ideas? Does that matter? Is that in any way relevant to Likud or Adelson ? No such issues can be debated on the Left.
I read articles at unz, amongst many places (Left and Right). I dislike the indulgence in overt racism that I read in the pieces and comments there, yet at the same time it is a rare place for non neo-nazi critiques of Jewish power – something I see as undeniable in todays world. For seeing what is plain as day, the Left tell me that I am a racist regardless of any discussion of the facts.
Critiques of Jewish (racist) in-group advancement as a major feature of politics in the West does not by definition mean adherence to an alternative (white) supremicism. There has to be space for such a critique from a universalist position.
As Gilad Atzmon–yet another brilliant writer who got canned from CounterPunch–would put it: ‘Jewish power is the power to silence criticism of Jewish power.’
Hmm. Maybe I’ll add Unz to my mainstream media bookmarks folder. I click on those links less often than I click on my alt/progressive links, but I sometimes visit them. One Conservative, or rightwing, site I visit often is The Duran. Their Trump- and State-worship makes me sick, but Alexander Mercouris really does dig into things and informs himself and I often agree with him on matters. I stopped visiting Unz years ago because of what I found there. But these days, I’m just as disappointed by what I find on progressive sites, ergo…
There are endless examples of these hoaxes.
Recent examples are the Jussie Smollett “racist and homophobic attack.”
The Catholic boys in MAGA hats who were demonised by the lying MSM when it was left wing extremists causing the trouble.
163 bomb threats to US synagogues made by a Jewish man in Israel.
All the above is true. Though by now we all know that the truth is “anti semitic.”
I have asked many times why the previous “3.5 million Jews gassed at Auschwitz” is now “1.1 million.”
Nobody has yet given me an answer, plausible or otherwise.
The human skin lampshades were intended as a joke by a Soviet official with a weird sense of humour.
The human soap was recycled WW1 atrocity propaganda.
The sad irony is that the decades long-standing propaganda and censorship of discussion of The Holocaust has created a seething underground of anti-semitism which points to the censorship and propaganda as proof of their anti-semitic arguments. Another irony is that racist Jews like Bibi and Adelson will never feel the sting of anti-semitism, while progressive American Jews who criticize Israel and support Palestinian rights are accessible targets for vicious and ignorant anti-semitic bigots.
progressive American Jews who criticize Israel and support Palestinian rights
sure, there’s at least a few dozen of them. most of them are at MondoWeiss.
Been looking at the much linked-to ‘Torah Jews’ website.
These seem to be the go to referal when making the assertion that ‘many Jews reject Israel’s claim to be the ‘Jewish State’ and reject zionism or the equating of anti-zionism with anti-semitism’.
There are no names anywhere on the website (that I can find). All the commentary articles are anonymous, as are the contact details. Nobody puts their name to any of it.
A Google maps search of their address produces a small cellphone shop in New York.
Their Twitter feed is remarkably devoid of retweets, and comprises almost exclusively of the same point made day after day- i.e. that American religious Jews do not all accept Israel.
There is no conversation that is being documented there.
It seems fair to conclude that they are a very small organisation.
More curiously to me, I looked at the Youtube vidz of ‘Orthodox Jews protesting/ getting arrested in Israel’. I don’t know about anyone else, but they look like the no public order situation that I have ever seen anywhere else….
I am certain that there are earnest and courageous Jewish humanitarians who speak out against zionist crimes.
I am not certain about some of what gets presented supposedly showing me that there is a significant percentage of religiously devout Jews who are staunch opponents of Israel.
I’m not sure where you get your info from but there’s an entire sect of Orthodox Jews who do NOT accept the state of Israel, and it’s based on the notion that until the Second Coming, Israel is an illegitimate state. I’ve been on demonstrations with them in London and New York, much to the confusion of NY cops who couldn’t figure out why they weren’t demonstrating with the Zionists.
I’ve said where I’ve got my information from in the post.
I don’t dispute that there are religiously observant Jews who object to zionism on theological grounds. I am questioning the often read inference that this is particularly representative.
I am new to researching this and would gladly stand corrected, but I have not found a large, vocal and organised campaign amongst religious Jews in the UK or the US on this issue. I see a small, self referencing circle of non-conformists who get their message amplified by non-religious anti-zionists.
You yourself say that you are not religious, yet you joined the march of a religious sect to express your secular political views on Israel. How many others did I wonder?
I never said they were representative of anything except their own sect but they exist and they’re quite vocal. As to being on a demo ‘with them’, well no, I was on a demo in Brooklyn protesting the visit of Begum, the Orthodox posse were ALSO on the demo (as a group, as I said much to the confusion of the NYC cops). Ditto for the one I was on in Trafalgar Square, both these by the way, some years ago. My lack of religion is neither nor there.
As to being on a demo ‘with them’, well no, I was on a demo in Brooklyn protesting the visit of Begum, the Orthodox posse were ALSO on the demo (as a group, as I said much to the confusion of the NYC cops). Ditto for the one I was on in Trafalgar Square, both these by the way, some years ago.
Ok, I misread what you previously wrote.
I am interested about whether my point is right or wrong about an over-representation of anti-zionist sentiment amongst religious Jews in the US or UK in the anti-zionist Left alt media..
What proportion would you cite or guess?
Frankly, I’ve no idea, but I suspect it’s quite small.
Perhaps for a religious organisation or individual that is more representative of devout Jewish views on Israel, we might look to chabad or Rabbi Sachs?
Those circles have considerably more followers, and more branches reaching out to Jewish community groups and synagogues accross the world.
If 97% of people who self-identify as “Jewish” are active or passive supporters of zionism (as in, they are members of Jewish organizations which actively support zionism), whereas 3% (a charitable estimate) keep telling us “not all Jews…” or “zionism is anti-semitic”, who should we believe? Why is it supposed to be a 3% minority who are the supreme authority on the content of Jewish identity?
These claims are implausible on their face. Jewish identity is what the large majority of people who so identify say it is — that’s why it’s called “Jewish identity”. A common argument is that until the 1960s, most “Jews” were not supporters of zionism. In fact, zionism was considered to be Bad For The Jews. After the Six-Day War, and the alliance with US imperialism, this started to change, and by the 1970s, zionism was Good For The Jews.
(A now heavily suppressed fact is that during the 1930s and 1940s, it was the USSR and “communism” that was Good For The Jews. During the 1950s and 1960s, “communism” gradually became Bad For The Jews, and the allegiance shifted to Israel and zionism. This accounts for the extremely Talmudic style of argument that was used to defend both, at various times.)
This and other examples illustrate what is constant in Jewish identity. “The goyim are like cattle, they were only created to serve us.” It’s ethnic supremacism, all the way down, or all the way back, for a thousand years, or more.
I wouldn’t know the numbers myself.
If it weren’t so serious it would all be quite funny.
I mean, the likes of Asa Winstanley recently point out Lansman and Owen Jones supporting Israel, and accuse them of antisemitically linking Jewishness with zionism.
Owen Jones is of course the biggest supporter of anti-zionist Jeremy Corbyn, and so gets labelled an antisemite from the Right.
People like Atzmon get labelled antisemite by Greenstein et al for stating that zionism and jewish identity are effectively inseparable to critical thinkers.
A small sect of religious Jews claim that they speak for ‘Real Jews’ against Israel, and say that zionism (and by extension, about 95 % of all Jewish organisations in the world) are antisemitic.
Most secular anti-zionists with a profile cite these small number of religious jews as proof of Israel being ‘antisemitic’.
The real nasty, race hate fuelled antisemites all seem to have a link to Israel (-and by extension most Jewish organisations that support Israel). Nobody talks about this undeniable fact because it is ‘antisemitic’.
A lot of the reported ‘race crimes’ against Jews turn out to be committed…by Jews posing as far right racists.
It’s a farce.
Monty Python had nothing on all this.
I didn’t even know about them until recently. The Haredi were looked at in an article by Miko Peled. You won’t hear about them in the corporate media. (I have no use for some of their religious beliefs.) What is striking about the Haredi is that they not only reject the Israeli State, but they reject it for right reasons.
Further to that, if we look at many of the twitter accounts around this issue we find a circle of feeds that all have the same website link to torahjews.org and all have between 2,000 and 10,000 followers:
Jewish Identity
Voice of Our Rabbis
Original Jews
Jews vs Israel
American Jewry
Satmar View
Diaspora Jews
(as well as the True Torah Jews mentioned above).
Again, there does seem to be a genuine objection to zionism amongst some modern day Jews of New York area (about 1.5 million in total). I do wonder whether the religious component of this is as significant as its often made out to be (-by anti-zionists often as not).
Even the term “The Holocaust” why is it capitalised? is misleading as if it was the first and only when it is neither.
This is why I label Zionism anti-semitic, never mind Israel Shamir’s gefilte fish (which I really love and have done since my Auntie Lizzie in Leeds turned me onto it as a kid). My mum used to buy it out of a wooden barrel in Soho, my Friday treat with a giant pickled cuke. All gone of course.
I agree. As I’m sure you know, the etymology of term “Holocaust” is quite interesting. Same goes for “antisemitism”. I use the terms not ideologically, but rather as an established convention.
The reason is not a secret. The 4 million was a Soviet estimate, that was challenged by Raul Hilberg. The latter estimated 1 million. His argument may be found in Destruction of the European Jews.
It is a bit freaky to have scientifically illiterate (not even grade 12 chemistry) clowns like Proyect milling about—nightmare fuel.
the following allegedly scientific references may be of interest:
http://holocausthandbooks.com/
This article is patently false. We never removed Ed’s article. It was bumped from our main page, because we can only fit a certain number of pieces on the sidebar during our Weekend Edition. It was still on our current articles page, his author page and searchable via Google. It’s still up on our site, always has been. We hope Ed will correct his error.
I see you found time to publish an article on the subject on your website, but wouldn’t a simple email response at the outset have avoided all this? You say this article is false, but then admit that the CIA article was “bumped” from your main page – so not exactly “false” then, more like, a misunderstanding, exacerbated by you failure to reply to a reasonable query. Also to sign off the article “your humble editors” just seems like mockery.
That said, this writer does seem to have overreacted and leapt to conclusions by establishing a conspiracy. Not sure what all the waffle about boxing has to do with anything, either. However, a simple explanation followed by an exchange of apologies – yours for failing to reply, his for accusing you of … whatever it was he struggled to say, would resolve the situation. “Never explain, never apologise” is not a wise mantra to live by, in reality.
You are all being rather silly.
Just can’t get away with that mate, if it’s a simple as you claim why did he not get a reply to his repeated queries about the matter? Perhaps you could explain that.
Counterpunch’s efforts to decree the legitimate boundary on the left could have worked if its readership had been composed of unthinking liberals. It’s no wonder their begging for donations is now so frantic.
— but this policy is recommended by the highest possible left-liberal authority:
Ah yes, the pre-imperialist Noam Chomsky. I miss him.
Bevin,try michael collins piper if you are interested in who killed jfk.
I’m really not interested. I don’t think that it is very significant. But thank you for your polite and thoughtful reply.
“Anti-Semites” are those who are against the Palestinians – who are the only and true descendants of the old Hebrews – and Anti-Semites are those, who are/were against the Arabs. FULLSTOP!
So those who murdered the people and countries of Somalia, Iraq, Libya, Syria and who mass murder the Palestinians to this day are the real Anti-Semites.
This because Arabs and Hebrew-Palestinians are of Semitic race (according to their own race ideology of these Anti-Semites).
Israelis and those who consider themselves by race to be “Jewish” are not of Semitic race but of Turk (not “Ottoman”) race. this because they are descendants of the people of the Khasar Empire (north and east of the Black Sea), who took over the Hebrew religion about the year 600 AD.
This is why the ancestors of all people who falsely consider themselves to be “Jews by race” (I use the term “Jew” only for follower of the Hebrew religion) had their origin in East Europe – never in Palestine or India or Iran (the later having had colonies of real Hebrews 2000 years ago).
Report finds Ashkenazi Jews descended from Turks
@milosevic
Very interesting indeed! thank You!
Having read the above, as well as some of his other writing, I very much doubt that he considers zionism to be intrinsically anti-semitic, since ethnic supremacism seems to be the very essence of Jewishness.
But if you know him personally, why not ask?
that was supposed to be a reply to here:
https://off-guardian.org/2019/02/21/counterpunch-shadowboxes-and-loses/#comment-147208
See: Leading Israel lobby group sees massive rise in budget
https://electronicintifada.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=70effeb5f63e84ab0c0730984&id=012d80c02c&e=e55063ad42
So anti-zionism is just anti-semitism in disguise? This is the trope that the Labour Party Zionists used, not only to castigate Corbyn but also to get the internationally accepted description of anti-semitism replaced with exactly this! Outrageous! Oh, but I forgot, I’m just a self-hating Jew.
I’m just a self-hating Jew.
Why not just resign from Jewishness? Then you can think as you please, without having to worry whether your opinions are contrary to the perceived interests of a nasty ethnic-supremacist cult.
Resign from Jewishness? Not sure what that means but to clarify, I’m not Jewish by religion (I don’t have a religion), there’s no such thing as the Jewish race, so at best, I’m Jewish because my mum told me I am, which, as she, like me was a communist, I’m Jewish by ‘culture’, the culture of European Jews (she was from Russia). BTW, it was a tongue-in-cheek comment (self-hating Yiddle) but perhaps you didn’t get that?
To further clarify, I DO think as I please, thanks very much. I don’t recognise the state of Israel, I regard it as stolen land. I
I DO think as I please
I don’t doubt it, and I’m sure your mother does too. The point is that if you stop identifying yourself as “Jewish”, the overt zionists won’t be able to call you “self-hating”, and the covert zionists won’t be able to point to you as part of their “not all jews…” disinfo campaign.
(that it is a disinfo campaign, becomes obvious as soon as one dares to ask, “among people who self-identify as ‘Jewish’, what are the relative proportions of zionists and anti-zionists?”)
Milosovic, I’m not sure if that’s the correct approach, to deny my history, my ancestors, but it’s true to say that if my mum (ashes these past 26 yrs) hadn’t told me that she/I’m of ‘Jewish’ descent then yes, I’d never know. On the other hand, the Nazis completely exterminated my mother’s family during WWII, how can I forget that they were wiped out because they were Jews (and of course, Russians, the untermensch)? I’m also part Roma and 2-3 million Roma were also exterminated, should I also forget that?
I think the issue, as I’ve said elsewhere, is NOT about Jews, it’s about Israel and Zionism, which boils down to imperialism and colonial conquest. Israel exploits Western (presumed) guilt to get away with literal murder, The trick is conflating Jews with Israel/Zionism, that’s why Zionism is intrinsically anti-semitic. When I was kid my mum used to tell me that, ‘a Jew is just an Arab on horseback’.
All this -ishms, -cals, and -ists steer away from the fact that your human.
Just call yourself human and act humane, steer away from the unanswerable ‘logical song’
BTW, Milosovic, Israel Shamir is an old friend of mine and like Israel, I regard Zionism as intrinsically anti-semitic!
Having read the above, as well as some of his other writing, I very much doubt that he considers zionism to be intrinsically anti-semitic, since ethnic supremacism seems to be the very essence of Jewishness.
But if you know him personally, why not ask?
Okay, I will.Will let you know what he says.
Nothing beats civil discussion, as evidenced here: Thank you.
I personally would be very interested in your quest for further clarification.
You appear trustworthy 🙂
Tim, ‘I appear trustworthy’ but appearances can be deceptive. Just kidding. I have emailed Israel and I await a response. you’ll be the first to know.
BTW, I stand by opinion the Zionism is anti-semitic, in fact it’s blindingly obvious simply by the nature of this debate on anti-semitism ie, redefining anti-semitism as including any criticism of the Zionist entity, Israel.
I’ve been asked whether I consider Zionism being intrinsically anti-Semitic.
Well, next step, you’ll call gefilte fish – antisemitic))
Is Islamism anti-Muslim? Were Ustasha anti-Catholic? Was Shin Fein anti-Irish? Was NSDAP anti-German?
I think it is too paradoxical!
Here is a longer take:
The Jewish law has a sensible rule: “Minhag Israel din hu”, meaning ‘Israel (that is Jewish umma) acts righteously”, the way Jews act is the way of Jewish law.
Provided that majority of Jews accept Zionism, it is not against them.
The way out of this problem is to invoke the erevrav thesis, saying that a lot of Jews are not real Jews but (spiritual or real) descendants of gentiles who accompanied Children of Israel on their way out of bondage. This is a Jewish analog of takfir, of declaring somebody kaffir among Muslims.
So there is no easy answer for your question. If pushed for an answer, I’d say, no, Zionism is not antisemitism, and anti-Zionism is not antisemitism either. Say No to takfir))
Counterpunch trashing someone can be treated in the same way as not believing anything until it’s officially denied.
Jeffery St Clair is no one’s “buddie” He’s a tool of the highest order, who seems to take his publishing orders from the Atlanti Council now. Perhaps someone gave him the nod regarding the dirt they hold on him and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Perhaps he’s always been a tool
Perhaps he’s just another ‘liberal’. You don’t need to be on the payroll to support imperialism, check out Tariq Ali for example, being a ‘lefty’ is just another job.
I’d be interested to know in what way Tariq Ali supports imperialism; what I’ve read (and listened to) by him indicates the exact opposite. I did a quick search and only came up with someone saying that Ali’s speaking positively about Hezb’allah and Iran qualifies him as a kind of “crypto-imperialist” because Iran is (at least according to the usual suspects) “the world’s leading exporter of Islamic fundamentalism (never heard of Saud-owned Arabia, I guess).
Anyway, if you know of where I might try looking for more on Ali supporting imperialism I’d appreciate the help. ^_^
I caught a whiff of Ali’s fakery a while back. I forget what it was exactly, but this discussion doesn’t surprise me. I haven’t hear from him, or read anything by him, in a long, long time. I think that if he was a progressive, then by now one of the dozens of sites I visit regularly would have carried something by him. I’m just guessing, but it seems to me that that suggests that others are onto Ali.
Where can one find Tariq Ali articles now?
Well here’s one:
http://rt.com/news/syria-assad-ali-resign-361/
I referred to it in my piece here: https://investigatingimperialism.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/tariq-ali-says-assad-has-to-go-im-depressed-no-im-outraged-by-william-bowles/
Thanks for that expose’ of passe’ Trendy Lefty Tariq Ali.
By the way, if your mother (of blessed memory) told you, you are Jewish, then you are.
Yes, I’m aware of the ‘fact’ that Judaism is matrilineal, though I hear that Israel has rewritten this ‘rule’ so now either parent will do. I wonder why (not).
I might add re the Tariq Ali thing, that it is possible to make a very good living out of being some kind of lefty, as long as you’re anti-communist that is.
Thanks for the link to your written piece; much appreciated. In all honesty, to paraphrase the Dude, it’s mainly like, your opinion, man. Ali’s main transgression in the interview you’ve also graciously linked to, is calling the game at its outset (2012, before it became obvious that the “opposition” was scarcely peaceful, and that foreign powers were already overtly intervening in Syria, and before the commitment of Russian Aerospace forces when it became obvious that foreign powers were importing proxy militias to do their dirty work). As commenters on your original piece noted, Ali has always been against direct intervention by foreign powers into a sovereign state, preferring good ol’ diplomacy.
Again, it seems that in 2012 his only transgression was speaking too soon on the situation in Syria…as many other people around the world did.
Many thanks for your help, once again.
Peace.
So Ali’s call that “Assad has to go” is legitimate?
It’s no more nor less legitimate than your own (or anyone else’s) opinion on the matter. Again, this is based on material that predates the more unsavory revelations about Syria’s misfortune became apparent (remember this was 2012, scarcely one year after the sheise started hitting the fan, and two years before the situation changed dramatically once again).
You do raise an interesting point, though; how does one define “legitimate,” and by what criteria is such a definition measured? To brand someone a “fake lefty” over an error due to incomplete information, while a fluid situation is still evolving seems rather arbitrary and, again, a matter of personal opinion. Einstein ignored the effects of gravity at the quantum level (he later said this was the greatest error of his career); should he therefore be marked as a “fake genius?”
A teacher of mine once said, “every bullseye in competition is the result of 99 misses during practice.” Ali has many bullseyes to his credit; perhaps he can be allowed a miss from time to time.
Good conversation ^_^
So, it’s all just down to opinions? Well that settles that doesn’t it. What’s the point of this exchange if it’s just my opinion versus Ali’s?
I give up,
Well, yes; it is all down to opinions in the end. The point of this exchange (I guess) is to determine whether Tariq Ali is a “fake lefty” (and therefore deserving of condemnation or derision), because he supposedly supports imperialist ideology. If we use the examples you’ve provided as a yardstick, one could argue effin Trotsky was an imperialist with the whole “export the revolution thing;” is Trotsky therefore a fake leftist?
I didn’t mean to wind you up, and maybe I’m arguing from a point not as informed as yours. This happens from time to time in the exchange of ideas (aka “opinions”), and changes with the acquisition of more knowledge.
Suffice to say, an assertion was made that Tariq Ali is a “fake lefty” because he “supports imperialism.” The info to back the assertion up doesn’t come up to scratch in proving that Ali is somehow an imperialist (or abets and enables imperialism), IMO. But, for all I know, you’re genuinely entitled to “cast the first stone” on this point, and apologies if I’ve somehow spoken out of turn.
Again, good conversation ^_^
Peace.
Little proves the antisemitism point of the breakaway Independent Group better than some BTL here and and a few other alternative sites. Pitty because the MSM DO need countering but not going over board.
Macron has one thing right (only) and that is postmodern antisemitism is packaged as antiZionism. What he doesn’t get is that importing millions from Islamic nations is going to make that problem worse, not better. Marine Le Pen did.
Pity you don’t push the boat out for once and try not going over board, with P&T straw men: instead offer up some form of constructive or even a combative response from the mighty Ant. >>>
Ant. >>> “look, flying fish” <<>> “Naaah, it’s just @joanryanenfield, swimming the Grand Union Canal, trying to dodge D’Mail”
🙂
Most Zionists are right wing Christians. So your argument fails.
What our Zionist chums can never understand is that when you DO bad things, people SAY bad things about you.
Like dropping 20,000 tons of bombs on Gaza, a higher explosive yield than the atom bomb on Hiroshima.
Or gunning down hundreds of kids with dum dum bullets and British sniper rifles.
Or passing Zionist Nuremberg Race Laws to create the world’s only openly racist state.
Or throwing Palestinian families out of the homes they have occupied for generations to make room for rabid Zionist fanatics just arrived from Brooklyn.
Or throwing Palestinian families off the land they have farmed for generations to make way for Zionist settlers.
Or Zionist cabinet minister Shaked calling for Palestinian mothers to be exterminated so no Palestinian children can be born.
Or the national newspaper Times of Israel openly advocating genocide, calling for the Palestinian people to be exterminated at concentration camps in the desert.
Or rabbis publishing books calling for Palestinian children to be murdered.
But of course any criticism of this is just “anti semitism.”
It’s time to start taking what these people say at face value.
If opposing ethnic cleansing and genocide is “anti-semitism”, then logically, supporting these things must be “semitism”. We may therefore conclude that “semitism”, and its adherents, are a fascist movement, bearing a striking similarity to naziism, and as such, should be reviled by decent people everywhere, until such time as they either renounce their putrid ideology, or at least, are deprived of any position where they might exercise it.
Bearing in mind these considerations, now everyone can be proud to be an “anti-semite”. Sign up now, and beat the rush!
Classic Milo. . . (chuckle) where do i sign up, Now ?
Gotta’ beat the rush to avoid Ashkenazi Armageddon Antithetics
Coz’ i’m only lil’ Tim & don’t wanna’ get ‘Trampled under Foot’ by decent people,
or Led Zeppelin fans.
🙂
I’m always amazed when people cite the sort of comments found in places like this (or frankly any open comment site online) as proof of anything in the real world. People with strong views tend to congregate in places where others of similar views hang out. Or where they can have a good rant/discussion/argument. Or where they can just vent their peculiar/cranky/original/insightful/delusional (take your pick) ideas. This is such a place, so expect outrageous/conspiratorial/offensive/repugnant and just plain daft comments. But don’t use them to justify your own prejudice, or support your bias, or make any sort of claim about the world in general. These are just individuals and don’t speak for anyone but themselves.
Who? Well, if I had to take a wild guess, I would say Louis Proyect. Remember him, people? He used to troll us here a couple of years ago. At that time he made it clear that he hates Off-Graun, hates Global Research, and he especially hates Unz.com.
Anyway, that’s my guess. I personally don’t bother with CP anymore. For years it was my favorite website–I would visit almost every day. But after Cockburn died, I knew it was just a matter of time before it went to seed, and that’s exactly what happened not long after Trump was sworn in. That’s when St. Clair & Friends suddenly decided that they were with ‘the resistance’ and that anyone who condemned the deep state was therefore a ‘QAnon’ who had to be excommunicated. Sad …
Wow! Speak of the devil. All I had to do was mention Proyect and he turns up and starts commenting here again.
It’s almost like there’s some automated system that continuously scans dissident websites, and dispatches various faux-left shills, trolls, personae, and manifestations, when their services are needed.
(what will happen if I mention that we haven’t heard from “binra”, recently?)
Unfortunately, their scriptwriters are not always up to the job, as I demonstrated above.
I haven’t read Counter Punch for ages as it always struck me as a front magazine for agendas which were very mixed. Like the Guardian it did carry writers that were worth reading at times and its trajectory it has mimicked – only more acutely. This indicates that the editors were always compromised and it is a sign of the times when the insurance policy has to be used so obviously on targeted assets.
Precisely: succinct and to the point,
perfectly worded, tutisicecool .
Hammer / nail – bang onTC , Top comment 😉
As somebody pointed out below, what is the significance of the fact that the original article has now magically reappeared on the CounterPunch website?
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/01/the-cia-then-and-now-old-wine-in-new-bottles/
Perhaps the Controllers’ hasbara-maximization algorithms concluded that the conspicuous disappearance of an already-published article was more damaging than its actual content.
One would have thought that JSC would have sussed out where the limits of Counterpunch’s shadow keeper lay in his nineteen years working as editor there.
As the sun sets on the Anglo-Zionist Empire, its lengthening shadow covers an ever-increasing range of facts and issues, casting them into darkness and obscurity. Those who have the poor taste to try to illuminate that which the Ministry of Truth wishes to disappear in shadow, thereby ensure that they will be the next to be unpersonned.
“Dusk draws in upon a rising Moon,
Stars smother the vault of Heaven.
Forest rustles swayed by rising Wind,
The Balkan HAARPs the Rebels’ Hymn . . .”
Hristo Botev: circa 1876, first printed in the satirical newspaper, titled :-
** The Alarm Clock **
(Implying the Ottoman Empire, reference ‘Moon’:
implying apathetic & corrupted wealth, reference ‘Stars’:
implying momentum towards conflict, reference ‘Wind’
and a harp pretty much covers all audible frequencies, with which to Harmonise &
illuminate the moral way forth, with soulful resonant pitch, echoed by mountains & real people,
who must urgently comprehend, how we Geo-EngineereD OUR Weather !
It’s a direct translation from ole’ Bulgarian, that works today, maybe even more profoundly,
as history repeats & NATO implodes, was my ‘take’ 😉
************
” When the lights go out in the West, the ‘Light’ shall shine on the East ”
Reng Zhengfei
*****************
Warm regards,
Tim
With Poor taste in mouth, well & truly unpersonned . . .
From the shadow 🙂 still illuminating, hopefully.
Yes gatekeepers every where .In this day and age that is a telling sign that the plutocrats are running scared and trying to hedge their bets.
It reminds me of when I first came across Le Monde Diplomatique another so called left wing rag . It did not take me long to realize what a despicable and revolting magazine it was. Pro liberal interventionism .
They were so for the French intervention in Malawi that they were justifying the pro French view on the so overly abused and well debunked ruse of Islamic fundamentalism.
Once Counterpunch stopped allowing Vltchek’s articles on (circa 2015) my BS detector was alerted haven’t read anything on that web sight since.
Post Scriptum: A way to detect if the web sight is true and not a gatekeeper use Voltaire’s meter. Whom one is allowed to be critical about and if it is published without disclaimers.
How is all the Murdoch run press doing? The old black sheep?
Are they good or bad guys now?
What an absurd comment, Antonym, are you gloating or goading & trolling, today? Hard to comprehend you, given Murdoch’s purchase of “…probably the dodgiest Drilling licenses in the history of Oil & Gas” (as described by the Business insider, back in 2013), “from some dubious Israelis” (NetanYahoo):
completely ignorant of Syria’s Golan Heights history are we, Antonym ? & of Israeli occupation, human avarice & wholly illegal sale of drilling licenses on the stolen Golan, (against UN Regs, see link below). to Genie Energy / Oil & Gas.
I mean a sale directly to, Rupert Murdoch, Rothschild, & Cheney ex Halliburton CEO and an ex-CIA Boss James Woolsey friendly chap, behind the frontline of Deep State Ops. somewhere, going by memory:
d’noticed aforementioned CIA ‘boys’ club GENIE Energy Oil & Gas , which never gets mentioned in the Western MSM, collectively today, let alone in that scum Murdoch’s Media , whilst thieving with what constitutes wholly illegitimate claims to Syrian Resources , as i type …
You mean the same Murdoch, presumably ?
https://journal-neo.org/2017/03/30/golan-heights-israel-oil-and-trump/
A more recent update for you, but things keep moving: stay tuned. . .
You begin to irritate with your constant pathetic attempts at provocation, projection & transference , in order to distract, disturb, divide & rule limited time & resources, like in these pages , rather like Murdoch & Co. do,
(but not just as Troll, like you), moreover , as part & parcel of the CIA’s Weltanschauungskrieg.
What are you in wind up mode, & just trolling again for fun ? while others die ? … get some therapy !
Were you still in school , when the Business Insider, the Economist and a few others, (not then party to the CIA state of play & Weltanschauungskrieg), briefly covered the matter of who owned Genie , who have been drilling Syrian resources illegally, from Israel’s illegal occupation of Syrian Territory … ?
Maybe you need schooling also on the USS Liberty, as well and the day that Israel attacked the USA and murdered 34 US sailors in international waters, on the hour that the Golan Heights were attacked, under wholly false & ‘tractor’ engineered pretences, as commanded and admitted to a journalist by General Moshe Dayan , himself ! whilst attacking the USS Liberty simultaneously (where the first IDF/IAF pilot on scene identified the USA Flag and flew home directly without attacking , warning all others inc. HQ & was promptly arrested), thus the attack on the USA Navy began from other pilots, knowingly, wholly wittingly !
Shortly after this hushed up incident, Murdoch bought the Sun newspaper and phased in Page 3 tits n’ all possible other distractions, like the phrase “MAD MULLAHS” , as part of his world view warfare, in tandem with CIA objectives in the region !
Weltanschauungskrieg >>> get the picture finally, son ?
(Check link above, if in doubt, loads more available)
How old are you Antonym, really ? In these pages, . . .
Our only hope is that Jerry Hall has fucked Murdoch senseless & brain dead,
like some others.
Have you ever met her, Antonym ?
Oh god here we go. I must have been one of the lucky ones who saw the Curtin article on the CP website before the article was disappeared. I got past a third of the way into it before I moved on disappointed because it said nothing new and was mostly the usual low evidence wittering about the removal of JFK from the scene.
All in all a completely worthless article amongst many other completely worthless articles, I haven’t given it a second thought until now – do we really need to still be chucking rocks at the Dulles gang? Surely there are many more apposite cia targets in 2019.
Why is the death of a crooked puppet of the elites’ pol even a talking point after more than 50 years?
I have no doubt that Malcom X and even Martin Luther King were offed by forces loyal to the 1960’s elite enforcer and standover man J Edgar Hoover, but JFK, why? Both he and his brother provided the model for the thousands of spineless neolib pols that have followed them. AFAIK he was doing an excellent job for the greedies – unless one is the sort of moron who laps up the lies of dem party hacks.
Vietnam? I have no doubt that JFK would have done as McNamara told him to and invaded Vietnam just as Johnson did.
Apart from the paucity of substantive evidence other than the rantings of assorted careerist dem hacks trying to make a name for themselves and the confused and often contradictory carryings on of assorted self described ‘eye witnesses’ the hard evidence points at Lee Harvey Oswald. I didn’t agree with much that Cockburn wrote but I do agree with him when he said “why don’t we regard the death of Kennedy as one of the left’s great success stories?” A thoroughly evil & corrupt human being who would have kicked off a nuclear war with Russia had the Soviets not correctly recognised there is no winner in such a conflict, got offed by a victim of US greed and hubris, end of story. There is simply no need to revisit this tosh forever and a day. If the cia did encourage the conspiracy of the assassination it should be regarded as the usual agency divide and rule tactics, to be avoided not engaged with.
As for counterpunch itself, well it is what it is, a site to occasionally find interesting trains of thought which are buried among piles of low grade repetitive tossage. I usually drop in on a Friday to see what’s up but generally there isn’t much, – about what is to be expected from any alleged ‘lefty’ site which uses facebook as a ‘publishing partner’.
Well said. If those who correctly question the lies pushed out by the establishment make the error of following behind a handful of too-oft repeated cliches, we are behaving no better than the self harming ninnies who too many overtly despise then patronize instead of persuading them to consider a useful point of view.
Jeeeez, and the next , “Oh god, here we go:” again: what are you on about, Rob ?
Rob Terrapin are you as stoooopid or even more stoooopid than UreKismet ? Did you also not read the articleS ? Check my response to UreKismet before responding to me.
Answers on a Postcard, please Rob.
UreKismet’s comment is a complete novice attempt at projection & transference & distraction from the core essence of what this article is all about and you say >>> “Well said” ???
Is everybody blinded by the lightweights ? Who wholly and deliberately miss Curtin’s serious point about censorship@counterpunch gatekeepers of rope-a-dope … & World View Warfare.
Talk about dumb & dumber teamwork endeavours to distract >>>
Which only goes to show, folks, that Ed Curtin’s excellent article and objective longterm observations based on decades of experience, similar to mine, witnessing endless attempts @primitiveCIA psychological warfare, evolving into CIA World View Warfare & ‘Weltanschauungskrieg’ by the CIA (once they finally studied Goebbels technique), must have been pretty close to the mark, even a lil’ too close for comfort for someone, not just @Counterpunch … 😉 it would seem.
Which reminds me of the case of the even more gallant journalist, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, whose editor was so pleased with her working in Aleppo and tracing armaments back to her native Bulgaria, discovering Silkway Airlines 747’s working for NATO delivering weapons to Transit Hub Azerbaijan for Terrorists and shipping heroin out >>> Dilyana was due to return to Aleppo, within weeks, her editor however received a visit from the BG. S.S. , who presumably had received direction from the CIA S.S. and Gaytandzhieva was promptly fired on the spot ! Poor sincere woman, just reporting truths.
Rob, if you wanna’ play cheer-leader & troll, at least grow some homegrown style, because, you “are behaving no better than the self harming ninnies who too many overtly despise” in the CIA & in these pages and about which this article centres itself.
World View Warfare >>> stick to the point you “Ninnie” 🙂 “consider a useful point of view.”
Lol 🙂
You’re a bit of an ad hominem scumbag aren’t you Tim Jenkins. And yes I get the internal contadiction in ad hominem scumbag ( I write that in the vain hope that you may see the wood for the trees something that your resonse to Terrapin doesn’t succeed at).
You realise that between your silly name calling (such as lightweight and novice both of which reek of frustration and disappointment) you don’t offer anything at all to refute my assertion that the Kennedy’s were loyal creatures of the establishment which dingbats too frequently accuse them of having been offed by?
The arithmatic doesn’t work.
As for the silly bit about missing the point of the article, no I didn’t miss it I just politely chose to not refer to it, as the left has always had its share of manboys with daddy issues who delight on turning the tepid glow of their nitpicking on other ‘lefties’ who they believe have somehow doubtless due to injustice succeeded in garnering a higher profile than they themselves enjoyed.
A patently ridiculous slant for any socialist given that leaders should never have currency, people are the true gold.
I loathe the mutual disembowelment those types engage in because it creates a drag on progress and consequently gave up directly involving myself in such pointless & destructive behaviour many moons ago.
On the other hand the article itself was worth discussing because it was such a typical example of why young humanists are pissed, yet another head up its arse piece on an ancient irrelevancy from an aged stick in the mud.
The deaths of Malcom X, Che Guevara and Muammar Ghadaffi really piss me off – JFK now he was a lightweight, a sexist, and a racist to boot, certainly not worth any consideration.
And no I don’t ‘hate’ the chap because hatred is such a pointless and negative emotion. If it were still important to care about him one way or the other I hope I would be rationally analysing his act for weaknesses.
@urekismet & @[email protected] 🙂
Nice try, to suck me in with the “ad hominem scumbag” insult, ‘boss’, but once again, not convincing due to all the inherent contradictions within your various off topic points & statements made. Like i said, ‘boss’, you don’t & won’t fool me with your attempts to change the subject, specifically, if nothing else, because you did NOT read the whole original article, (by your own admission), an article which proves useful to those less informed, regarding . .
>>> ‘ The Stalingrad of Ashkenazi Corporatist Weltanschauungskrieg.’ <<<
P.s. in your eagerness to regain some credibility for your inherent weakness of argumentation throughout, may i ask if you deliberately changed your 'monika' to the CIA's google analytica rep. of [email protected], or was that just another mistake ? You surely know the Google i mean, for whom the bell tolls, after supporting HRC with their analytics all the way in 2016 & LOST ! Despite all the Deep State orchestrated & coordinated efforts at World View Warfare, from Poll to Pole, to re-write history.
A very telling factual moment that . . . coz' as you are clearly a google user, why would anybody with a brain trust or rely on one word that you say, during the battle of Stalingrad in Ashkenazi Corporatist Weltanschauungskrieg ?
Do you rely on wiki media as well for your scripts ?
(chuckle).
Try sticking to the point of discussion in future and also actually reading the whole article to which you refer in a misconceived light, with misconceived perceptions. I know it's tough being the boss of the incompetents in the trolling world, today, but you have to ask yourself why you just cannot find the personnel these days, coz' most of us here already know the answer to that one, with so many short attention spans on display, like yours, 'boss'. 🙂
Sense the contempt ? 😉
FYI, at LEAST i rate your intelligence well above your cheerleaders & other tools of distraction, 'scumbag', in deed :), but you must still try much harder 😉 or get a proper job, Sunshine, where ridicule is less likely to offend you 🙂
“… JFK, why? Both he and his brother provided the model for the thousands of spineless neolib pols that have followed them. AFAIK he was doing an excellent job for the greedies – unless one is the sort of moron who laps up the lies of dem party hacks.”
Sad but true. The policies of the Kennedys, that is. There really is no evidence at all that Kennedy was on the verge of withdrawing from Vietnam, smart though it would have been to do so..
As to who killed them and why? It is perfectly possible that the same forces that assassinated King, for example, were responsible for the JFK and possibly the RFK killings, not because either represented a threat to the state as constituted let alone the system, but because the police establishment in the USA was and, evidently still is, unrestrained and irresponsible-they kill whomsoever the fancy takes them to kill. As to the judiciary it is even less restrained- three million jailed will attest to that- and more inclined to what it pleases. False accusations and innocence found guilty and given exemplary punishment are central to the US legal system. So it is entirely possible that neither Oswald nor Sirhan was involved in the crimes for which they were condemned, posthumously and otherwise.
The logic is not quite as simple as UreKismet suggests, there doesn’t have to be a reason for killing someone and the people giving and carrying out the orders are not always either very bright or careful. The history of the American colonies and the US is the history of men getting away with murder, being rewarded for it, making fortunes out of it and seeming to do it for fun. No other motives are needed.
“It is perfectly possible that the same forces that assassinated King, for example, were responsible for the JFK and possibly the RFK killings, not because either represented a threat to the state as constituted let alone the system, but because the police establishment in the USA was and, evidently still is, unrestrained and irresponsible-they kill whomsoever the fancy takes them to kill”
Is that the best you can do? If the same forces that killed MLK have this far managed to elude justice, then does that not suggest that the whole Establishment and MSM were complicit then and ever since? That takes a lot of organising. And remind us why MLK was offed? Perhaps his opposition to the war in Vietnam? Ergo, anyone that opposes the MIC is fair game?
Whether your hatred for the Kennedys is justified, would you be just as pleased to see LBJ and Nixon gunned down by the Establishment? As the great charlatan Chomsky says: “Who cares who killed Kennedy”. Well, I care. But luckily for me, I do not live in your moral universe.
And please, don’t bother to respond. I’ve had a guts full with that other windBag.
I shall certainly respond to your charge that I hate the Kennedys by saying that it is not true.
Why you should assume that, because I do not subscribe to your theory that they were killed by secret forces afraid of their, unannounced, political plans, I therefore hate them I will leave you to work out.
I might add that I don’t believe either that MLK was killed because he had just spoken out eloquently on the subject of Vietnam.
Perhaps you didn’t notice but Huey Long was assassinated too, just as he was about to run against FDR. Then there were Fred Hampton and Malcolm X. Justice is not easy to come by the United States.
There is something very ominous about the way that people like you cannot bear the idea that others may decline to ride along side you on your hobbyhorse, and insist that not to agree with you is to withdraw, along with Chomsky, from your moral universe. A very small universe with a self appointed deity.
Bevin, my apologies if I have mistaken your indifference for JFK and RFK as hatred. I shall try to be polite, but unfortunately, my passions intrude. As you have noticed, I tend to simplify arguments; when Confronted with specious arguments, I suspect I am dealing with either a fool or a knave. Whilst I do not doubt your intelligence, I am not convinced of your sincerity. Despite what the MSM spout, the majority do not believe the Official Version AKA the Warren Report, despite 55 years of CIA propaganda.
At the risk of repetition, these murders were not some rogue elements of the police, but required the support of the whole political establishment. My point was that there must be something rotten in the State of Denmark. You appear to suggest that such specific killings are simply random acts of violence, which strains credulity. You just failed the Litmus Test big time.
I care not if I am the last man in my little universe. I worry when others think as I do, preferring to remain aloof from the herd.
Respectfully, let us agree to disagree.
Well, Hugh: in light of my recent comment on the other thread – have you ever considered that the “opposition to the MIC” plus ‘turning to peace’ narratives might be a dead end …and COG planning (which links JFK to 9/11) and Army Intelligence might be a more fruitful course of enquiry – a la Peter Dale Scott’s Deep State Events ouvre? This allows us to glimpse the activities of a shadow government through its use of ‘plausibly deniable’ mercenary operatives (such as E Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, etc) …a creeping elite fascism that is taking over the world. Don’t worry, PDS is a soft-Camelotian himself.
The MIC was doing fine out of Kennedy: a fact he was driving home literally to the day he died. He was a consummate politician who had the next years election very much in mind. He spoke of peace to the impressionable in his University commencement speech: to the less gullible, he spoke of war – to the Texas and Dallas Trade Marts (the last one an undelivered speech, obviously). Sorenson would have written both – so both need to be appraised …not just the one that suits the peace narrative.
I’ve just read establishment raconteur Max Hastings’ account of Vitetnam. He notes one of the major sponsors of the counterinsurgency ‘strategic hamlet’ programme was the Rand Corporation. All those herbicides and ex-foliants like Agent Orange – and the unreported use of napalm – were turning a tidy profit for the MIC. Unless we parse Operation Ranch Hand in favour of a spurious peace narrative.
For which even establishment-through-and-through Hastings can find no grounds in all the “breathless modern commentary”. Remarkably, he broadly agrees with my own analysis that the counterinsurgency, the mismanagement of the Buddhist Crisis, and the the assassination of Diem, turned the people against the imperialists and lost them the moral highground. Whatever anyone continues to think: ‘peace’ had nothing to do with the reason they killed Kennedy.
The whole “why he died and why it matters” pseudo-narrative has become self-negating. The reasons lie elsewhere. Parsing Operation Mongoose, Operation Ranch Hand, and the Strategic Hamlet programme from history have become misdirection from the real reasons “why he died …”. This is an auto-negating recursion that denies its own premise. Why did he die? Peace is not the answer.
Some of what you say is plausible, and US.policy in Vietnam was abhorrent. RAND Corporation, for whom Daniel Ellsberg worked, have a lot of baggage. It was Ellsberg son Robert who published Jim Douglass “JFK & The Unspeakable” which I took to be an act of contrition for the sins of Daniel.
However, just because shit happened under Kennedy’s watch, might it be possible that he was deliberately kept in the dark? Some have tried to blame the assassination of Lumumba and the arrest of Mandela on JFK too. I also recall that the CIA continuously thwarted him. Even his requested removal of the Jupiter missiles from Turkey before the CMC had been ignored. His own administration was riddled with subversion, hence his constantly having to work around them e.g. the Taylor/Macnamara report on Vietnam. “Are you sure you people went to the same country?”.
It may sound like a thin defence, but there is substance to it. Now to your Army Intelligence and COG theory. Are you suggesting that this was one bad apple in the otherwise pure and patriotic MIC? This same bad Apple had the power to control the DOJ, CIA, State, Secret Service, MSM etc. If that is the case, then maybe you have identified the face of the Unspeakable, and that we are in fact in total agreement on the fact that they assassinated JFK.
Your logic, if one tries to follow it, leads to madness. I will stick with the simpler myths and mysteries of good vs. evil. God Bless Tulsi.
There is a conversation on the ExComm tapes re: the removal of Jupiters (I think it was with Rusk and JFK). He mentioned the withdrawal, but never issued a direct order, so it wasn’t followed up. But this is a minor point.
I think you completely misconstrue my POV. The Unspeakable does not have a single face: it is legion …and pervasive in all of us. There is no black and white humanity versus the Unspeakable insanity. The Unspeakable is a quasi-universal frame of reference of reality that can lead to insanity.
Peace is not the absence of war: nor the interregnum between wars (the status quo ante bellum). Peace is the absence of war; plus the absence of all the sectarian and discriminative conditions that will ever lead to war. These discriminations are personal and cognitive, as well as shared as communally cognitive (mass psychological). These false cognitive constructs are cultural samskara – literally ‘same-doing’ …an action or cause that is planned and carried out from a shared misperception.
JFK was not hoodwinked by the CIA. He was committed to ‘saving’ South Vietnam. He signed off the counterinsurgency programme that ripped the population from the land, destroyed their ancestral ties, backed a minority Catholic dictatorship, etc. The facts are not in dispute. Part of the mindset of cultural samskaras that motivated this action was something called the ‘domino theory’. What is the domino theory in really real terms – that resulted in the dispossession of a nation? Sixty years on: the land is still poisoned, people still die, birth defects are common – for what? A domino theory?
The domino theory is but one of a huge range of false mental samskaric constructs that live on in the Kennedy legend. Maybe this is to abstruse a POV for most, but it seems most relevant to me. If we wish to have peace, should we not have a decent working definition of peace …such as the one I offered above. My definition of peace is only unworkable so long as we proliferate inferior definitions – such as the peace that needs to double its nuclear arsenal. Or the peace that needs to dispossess a nation. This seems like a very strange definition of peace to me.
Conventional ‘history’ is largely a body lies written by victors to hide or gloss over innumerable conspiracies. Alternative history is the conspiracies.
The Unz Review — American Pravda
Tragic about the Billy Collins. I’m surprised it wasn’t obvious that Resto’s fists were obviously too hard and that Collins didn’t call him out.
Gatekeeping is very much the order of the day. It’s a bit hard to explain why it’s such a trend. Aren’t people sick of all the lies?
I’d absolutely love to know what your evidence is for Lee Harvey Oswald being the assassin. Fascinating! And with a $12 relic from Mussolini’s armed forces, the Carcano, known, apparently, as the “humane” gun.
https://www.quora.com/Could-Oswald-fire-3-shots-in-5-6-seconds-using-the-Carcano-bolt-action-rifle-from-the-sixth-floor-of-the-Texas-School-Book-Depository/answer/Joseph-Mosser
Commenters on this site seem extremely resistant to the idea that the power elite inform us of their crimes. Sure, it’s counterintuitive but the evidence supports it so clearly and once you recognise it, it makes it much easier to analyse events.
A real assassin would not have chosen a Carcano but the most compelling evidence that Oswald did not perform the assassination is that no still of the “live” TV footage matches the photo of his own shooting. Obviously, he participated in being made the “patsy” and was sheepdipped off somewhere. That’s all you need to prove he didn’t do it just as all you need to prove that 9/11 was an inside conspiracy is the (agreed upon) 2.25 seconds of free fall acceleration in WTC-7’s collapse.
“Oh god, here we go:” Troll number 2 , surely ?
“WHOOOOSH”, try reading the whole article next time, at least, i mean go back and read the whole darned original ! Learn to search & comprehend in the process , coz’ the article referred to above has naff’ all to do with the Kennedys, in principle, we are discussing that which the primitive CIA operatives named initially “psychological warfare”, World View Warfare from the original expression
‘Weltanschauungskrieg’…
Your comment as student or troll is marked a complete FAIL, in reading & comprehension :
But, given your teamwork with Antonym, you get a mark of 1/10 , for a genuine trolling effort at ‘Projection & Transference’ , which you certainly manage better than lil’ Ant. coz’ he is really shit at projection & transference, as I have often pointed out to him, recently. Nice try, focussing on the Kennedys, but not the POINT of the article, in any sense! You sure as hell won’t catch me with your trolling tricks, perhaps on behalf of 5 Eyeyeyeyes , indeed , son, you is gonna’ have to work a whole lot harder there at the 77th Brigade of keyboard warriors , to elude my eagle eye for trolls, with over 40 years of professional media analysis & research and to the highest corporate level, for big oil ostensibly >>> and given the subject matter that the journalist Curtin refers to rather competently, why are we not surprised at your teamwork trolling ? !
Are you the boss of Antonym ? there today on active duty, monitoring & trying to teach him the various angles of attack ? Either that or you are really so dumb, that you did not read even 25% of the article, have a very short attention span and extremely poor comprehension skills ? !
You choose, either way your comment is rated “WHOOOOSH” in every sense, so follow the threads, read the articleS and let me know when you finally understand what the subject matter is >>>
(not the Kennedys, FFS you plonker, tough times trolling, well off topic ! )
CIA WELTANSCHAUUNGSKRIEG / WorldViewWarfare / primitives psychological warfare &&&
C E N S O R S H I P @counterpunch pulling punches, for whom the bell tolls !
We would like answers on a postcard: who made the decision to “PULL IT” , the original article and logic dictates while we are on the subject of “Pull it”, Larry Silverstein leaps to mind, so riddle me this.
The collapse of WTC 7 , was obviously controlled explosions, as the free-fall laws of physics dictate, wouldn’t you say UreKismet ? You know that historic moment in Weltanschauungskrieg, surely, in the building with the SEC & their securities & exchange investigation into weaponised weather experimentation impacting commodity markets & farmers bought out on the cheap , after successive droughts, where GMO production was subsequently planted after the rains returned, involving ENRON, MONSANTO & GEC, in the building that was never even hit by any aircraft, a steel structure that collapsed in its’ own footprint, vertically, in less than 10 seconds flat: the one which the clairvoyant BBC miraculously managed to announce had collapsed almost half an hour in ADVANCE of the actual real time collapse ! ! ! whadya’ reckon Ure! ? Now that was what i call World View Warfare , live in advance knowledge of WTC 7, son, I had time to make popcorn coffee & smoke a ‘ciggie’, before watching the smoking gun, sorry, i mean building collapse live >>> how about you ?
Were you watching live, like me, with an eagle eye for Weltanschauungskrieg ?
Having worked for the White House on a subcontract basis, (with CIA check & operatives, in the 90’s in Switzerland, Ure,), after I saw that shameless absurd Hollywood fiasco to deceive all with World View Warfare, on 9/11, i declined my services subsequently, partly because of 9/11 & WTC 7 especially, but also because of having to work with a load of dumbed down, poorly trained, poorly disciplined and heavily compartmentalised pig ignorant arrogant cowboy CIA operatives, that were a danger to themselves, let alone me and the cargo !
Would you work with a criminal bunch of incompetents ?
😉
Testing….
You forgot the prefix ‘de’
UreKismet – here trolling the Kennedy assassination I see! As in “why would anyone not believe the official story” – right? Wow! You’re an example of the absolutely “perfect” CounterPoof reader. Totally clueless about the history of that time, but absolutely certain in your beliefs that a “magic bullet” was somehow involved. Hey, maybe you should offer to do some writing for CounterPoof, you’ve got their shtick down pat.
ONe piece of “hard evidence” to explain is why Jackie reaches over the back of the limo to retrieve part of hubby’s skull if he was shot from the rear.
Whatever Counterpunch may once have been, it is clearly now just Faux Left controlled opposition.
Like Goodman and Democracy Now, it is Soros funded, and he who pays the piper calls the tune.
They parrot all the MSM talking points as established facts and holy writ, “Assad is gassing his own people”, and all the rest, and spend most of their time shilling for humanitarian bombing. They are corrupt, compromised, and completely untrustworthy, Deep State assets like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the whole army of bogus NGOs.
The same applies to Mother Jones, though I’ve no knowledge of their funding. .
Counterpunching below its weight?
Wow. The Edward Curtain “disappeared” experience is reminiscent of all the “disappeareds” that fascist pro-US South American regimes did to dissidents under military governments except for all the torture and death stuff.
But in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, these actions are the equivalent.
The despotic, tyrannical actions of CounterPunch (and Amy Goodman, Mother Jones et al) make them in-fact phony left conspirators in perpetrating US human rights crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the US Wall Street Weapons Military Israel Media Banking Industrial Complex. War Crimes trials ahead!
Both Cockburn and St. Clair are/were personally of the same puerile arrested development vicinity as Herr Trumpf: name callers and slanderers when they don’t get their way, tossing terrible twos fits and kicking and screaming and generally being vile, ugly, disgusting, infantile narcissists but their own little feudal kingdom. CP deludes readers with the false consciousness that CP is fighting the problem rather than distracting FROM the problem..
The Cockburn insults towards those doubting the Master Narratives of the Warren Commission and 9/11 and the St Clair practice of disappearing articles and people ESPECIALLY after St Clair was being Best Buds with them Just About Speak All There Is To Speak About Who The Shadow Is. See CIA Document 1035-960 Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report.
How much dark CIA money, Jeffrey, goes into those “matching funds” for reader contributions in December.
How much?
Would Counterpunch survive a transparent public audit?
Louis Proyect is vile and certainly a willing courier for Mossad. Caitlin Johnstone was really trashed by CP but I wondered at such a trashing (after even NADER had suggested common interests between left and right) and was glad to find her journalism as actual journalism — not CIA-friendly propaganda disguised as a, well, counter punch to the ruling elite media.
Exactly Thomas. Spot on.
It seems clear that Counterpunch’s strings are at least gently tugged from behind the scenes. I wonder . . . . who might wish to send attack dogs after JFK and 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and prevent an anti-neocon political alliance of libertarians and lefties? Cui Bono? Operation Mockingbird, back from the dead? Or perhaps the monster never died in the first place.
Personally still ambivalent about 9/11 but the JFK murder is not a “conspiracy THEORY” it’s a flat out conspiracy. Anyone who believes that Oswald was other than a patsy for the real assassins needs to get a check up for brain damage.
The threat of a CIA audit is more the mark here I think. Which usually =’s dump the paid for shilling shit in public along with a few allegations and compromising photos. Works every time. Ask Frau Merkel…
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when St Clair got that phone call from his controllers. No doubt a variation on “Now be a good boy and don’t bite the hand that feeds, Jeffrey.”
I imagine after that he hit the delete button faster than you can say ‘JFK Coup d’etat’!
The final decree in my divorce from CounterPunch came about when I wrote, quite respectfully, to object to the presence of an article that merely mouthed disproven assertions made by the MSM. In response I received a rude, brief email message akin to the ‘good-riddance’ sent to geoffreyskoll. That bullying released me forever from CP’s mental grasp.
Perhaps it’s time to just move on? There are now a multiplicity of independent media sites (I hate the word ‘alternative’, like we’re just another point of view?) and the good stuff gets syndicated all over the place! I’ve been doing it since the early 80s, before the Internet even, my own writing included, which has popped up all over the planet and translated (mostly without my knowledge) into who knows how many languages.
We don’t need Counterpunch, Counterpunch needs us! It’s the same with FB and Twit, screw them, I don’t use them, why should I finance my own censorship? What’s really important is to make sure that we keep access open to the Web. Readers will find us. At the end of the day, Counterpunch will get the writing and the readers it deserves. Good luck to ’em.
As a (slight) aside, many years ago Alex Coburn had a column in the old Village Voice in which he lambasted the word processor (that’s what they called them back then), adamantly insisting that was impossible to produce good prose on a computer, essentially arguing the word processors made writing ‘too easy’. Go figure.
You are surely welcome on this site,
Thank you.
adamantly insisting that was impossible to produce good prose on a computer, essentially arguing the word processors made writing ‘too easy’. Go figure.
Such things are best left to highly-trained experts, who have the judgement to know which subjects may be discussed, in the interests of good taste, and which may not. If the hoi polloi intrude on activities which should be left to their betters, their gaucherie may result in mention of JFK, 9/11, or similar cultural atrocities. And nobody (who matters) wants that to happen.
CP has gone to the dogs since Alex Cockburn died.
Publishing Louis Proyect’s drivel was the final straw for me.
Do you have any idea what, in the article, got their knickers in a twist? I’ve not read it myself (I’ll hunt it down if I can) but considering Johnstone’s position, I venture it was too leftwing, too actually anti-imperialist instead of playing at being one?
I’ll add Diana Johnstone to the list of staunch anti-imperialist writers who have been disappeared from CounterPoof in the last several years. I also believe it has been some years now since they’ve published any work by Alison Weir who is openly critical of Israeli influence on U.S. politics. However, before I stopped bothering with CP anymore I was treated to the same “pro-regime change in Syria” CIA propaganda I’d get anywhere else in MSM, provided by CounterPoof regulars Melvin Goodman and Louis Proyect. Who indeed pulls the strings there?
Several years ago I was quite stunned to watch as a whole array of regular male CounterPoof writers one after another publish blatant attack pieces directed at Caitlin Johnstone. Her crime was to suggest that no matter where we might place ourselves on the political spectrum, we may still have things in common that might allow us to explore and grow movements for positive social change together. This opinion, which I share, was met with the most blatant and vicious smears and distortions of her position by the CounterPoof boys. This episode left me highly suspicious of CP, but also had a “silver lining” in that it led me to become a regular reader of Ms. Johnstone, who I find offers much more penetrating social and political analysis than any of those CP “regulars” do.
As I’ve watched CounterPoof eliminate more and more of the most clear, well reasoned and insightful anti-imperialist voices writing today, my “suspicion” of CP and it’s editorial motives has morphed into open contempt I must confess. Eliminating Ed Curtain’s article critical of the CIA has now become sort of the “cherry on top” of that contempt. I see no reason not to view CounterPoof, as I view Mother Jones, as simply yet another “formerly progressive” media outlet that has now morphed instead into yet another empire friendly regime change voice, though one insidiously targeting readers who like to think of themselves as “progressives.”
You got it! First, I cancelled my subscription, saying Counterpunch had lost its punch, and St Clair said ‘good riddance.’ Now I glance at their email headlines and mostly throw them in the trash bin of history. This and and Amy Goodman, along with numerous others succumb. That is the problem with liberals: first as tragedy, then as farce.
Why would they ban anti-Israel items? The liberal bourgeoisie of this era have been exclusively anti-Israel to the degree of portraying this tiny country as a military mega-power. trampling over the “impoverished” Arab oil world.
Maybe everyone is well aware of this by now, but I hadn’t been:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/01/the-cia-then-and-now-old-wine-in-new-bottles/
“This tiny country” has been allowed to rampage through the entire region for decades, reducing it to chaos and misery.
It has received hundreds of billions in tribute from its goy stooges, together with unlimited amounts of completely free military equipment, including a huge illegal nuclear arsenal of 400 warheads targeted at all its neighbours, which it has repeatedly threatened to use, together with unlimited diplomatic and MSM cover for its endless crimes and atrocities. Sometimes of course, it just issues orders via its Zionist dual nationals to the 30 shekel whores it controls, Bush, Blair, Sarkozy, Macron, Cameron, May, Clinton, Trump to do its dirty work for it and destroy entire countries to serve the Zionist agenda, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran.
All this with the MSM applauding “Muh Israel” like trained seals.
Mark: brilliantly and succinctly said. The MSM whitewashing of Israel’s many crimes is revolting in itself, but then make comments on certain sites critical of the brutal occupation of Palestine, and the slaughter of men, women, children, paramedics, people in wheelchairs for fucks sakes, and you have all these Hasbara trolls coming out of the woodwork denouncing you as anti semitic and a ‘jew hater’ and other smears. I sometimes tell these robots to go watch The Lobby or read Mondoweiss or visit the B’Tselem site, and they respond with “they are self hating jews”! Its like trying to debate a brick wall.
all these Hasbara trolls coming out of the woodwork denouncing you as anti semitic and a ‘jew hater’ and other smears
I think it’s well past time to confront this scam head-on. If opposing indiscriminate massacres is equivalent to hating Jews, then a Jew-hater is what every decent person should be.
I’ll stop being a Jew-hater when I see some significant proportion of self-identified “Jews” abandon their fascist and racist psychosis, and stop being genocidal goy-haters. Until then, what’s sauce for the yid is sauce for the goyim. The tiny minority of decent people among the “Jews” are of course free to renounce that identity at any time they wish, and should be congratulated for doing so.
Meanwhile, not holding my breath. f*** Israel and all its various flunkeys, shills and stooges.
Milosevic: agree fully Milo. The scary thing is these trolls are so fecken brainwashed, it dosn’t matter what you say to the bastards. And two of them (on an Aussie site) have dobbed me into Facebook numerous times – had my Facebook account suspended about 4 times, once for a week, plus heaps of warnings for ‘breaching community standards’. Yes, I agree with you, its a total fraud and scam, but can you imagine the mainstream media running stories with headlines like “Zionist zealots smear people as anti semitic for criticising Israeli war crimes’? Or calling them out on it. How many in the UK media came to the defence of Corbyn when these zealots were hyperventilating about his ‘anti semitism’?
The simple fact is that the accusations have nothing to do with Jews, it’s ALL about Palestine. Here, in the UK the entire hasbara machine is funded and backed by the Israeli government. Just look at the 7 Blairite MPs who resigned, 6 are on the Labour Friends of Israel and one is the chairperson! And one of them is the same woman who talked about Blacks as being a ‘funny tinge’ on BBC TV!
More’s the pity that Corbyn didn’t go on the offensive instead of being bullied into silence but then he’s no socialist either.
That is just the Talmudic racist supremacy of these people. The goyim were put on the earth like donkeys to serve the Master Race.
Jezza has been fighting racism and genuine anti Semitism all his life. But it doesn’t matter.
Nothing he does will ever be enough to appease these people.
Jesus Christ couldn’t please these people when he walked the earth, so what chance has poor old Jezza got?
Give Israel $20 billion and you are anti semitic because you haven’t given it $50 billion. Give it $50 billion and you are anti semitic because you haven’t given it $100 billion.
Fight 5 wars for Israel and you are anti semitic because you haven’t fought 10 wars for Israel.
No matter what you do, it is never enough. They just push and push and push and want more and more and more. They never know when to stop. Like the way any criticism of Israel whatsoever has been criminalised in the US, Canada, France, and this is being extended globally. Supporting BDS in the US now carries 20 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. Youngsters in France were prosecuted for wearing BDS T shirts. Ordinary people in the US have to swear loyalty oaths to Israel to keep their job, or hurricane victims who claim welfare benefits.
The Board of Deputies and the Mossad Office want complete control over the Labour Party. They want to be able to choose its leader and candidates, and have the power to punish with instant dismissal any person who utters the mildest criticism of Israel, or who “offends” them in any way.
“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel. Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money. This is his servant. That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew. Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plough, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat.”
Ovadia Yosef, Chief Rabbi of Israel.
“Our race is the Master Race. We are divine gods on this planet. We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. Other races are beasts and animals, cattle at best. Our destiny is to rule over the inferior races. The masses will lick our feet and serve us as our slaves.”,
Menachem Begin.
Trolls defending US/UK deep state misdeeds would white wash their Anglo masters by blaming the Jews…
The Gehlen Organisation could be one of the toots for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehlen_Organization
These downvotes are unfair. There is a real issue is here– can’t anyone else see the possibility that Israel is being set up to take the fall for the next great crisis? For example, if the US economy were to implode (dollar loses reserve status, trade war, etc.), does anyone think US politicians are going to own up and plead guilty? No. They will refuse to be held accountable and look for scapegoats. What plausible scapegoats exist? Blaming Russia and China is old hat, been there done that. However, Israel is plump and ready for plucking. After all, Israel’s conduct is blameworthy, its foreign policy not in the US interests, a highly visible lobby promotes Israel’s interests in America, and a large percentage of the American and European population are latently antisemitic. In other words, the tinder is dry, easy to set off a conflagration.
Antisemitic conspiricists believe that Jews and the Israel lobby control the important levers of power in the USA. The truth is the reverse. While it’s true that a disproportionate number of Jews hold high positions in government and industry, suchy power is ephemeral. In the event of a major crisis such as losing a war or economic collapse, I believe it is likely that a tidal wave of antisemitism that sweeps the country. Politicians will have to distance themselves from Israel and AIPAC rather than brandish their endorsements.
I wonder that Israel is so willing to play the role of an over-the-top villain on the world stage, seemingly unaware that hubris is a fatal flaw punished by the gods.
Antisemitic conspiricists believe that Jews and the Israel lobby control the important levers of power in the USA.
Strangely, pro-semitic conspiracists believe the same thing, and are willing to bet a lot of money on the veracity of that belief.
How could anyone not agree that the Israel Lobby, and devoted pro-Israel Jews in the USA are extremely powerful, dominating foreign policy and sectors of the economy? My point is that such power is ephemeral. That could change in the blink of an eye. Tomorrow, perhaps in reaction to a scandal or economic crisis, a wave of antisemitism might sweep the nation, egged on by the same unscrupulous politicians that now bow to AIPAC, and the howling pack of Big Brother mass media. Jews are less than 2% of the population. Jewish power in America rests on a structurally shaky foundation.
A final irony is that that people who today offer objective and thoughtful criticism of Israel and the Israel lobby in America will likely try to swim against the antisemitic tsunami and thereby too be swept away.
It may be too late, but the smartest thing Israel could do would be to make a very generous peace with the Palestinians, ask for forgiveness and compassion, divest its nuclear weapons, make peace with Syria, Hezbollah, and Iran, drastically reduce its lobbying in the USA, end its meddling in foreign countries, and return to its philosophical kubbutzim roots. Pie in the sky? Maybe. But it’s worth a try.
After the attacks and abuse I’ve personally received, for offering objective and thoughtful criticism of Israel and its Lobby, I can say that I will most definitely not be standing or swimming against any “anti-semitic” tsunamis. Solidarity is a two-way street, as the saying goes, and I’ve received almost none from that direction.
The smartest thing individual “Jews” could do would be to resign from that identity NOW, while the exits are still unobstructed. After the earthquake, as the resulting tsunami approaches, it may be too late, as you say.
As for Israel, descending ever more quickly into its fascist, racist psychosis, to imagine what it might do if it were sane, is equivalent to speculating what pigs might do if they had wings. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, has said that the next war Israel starts will be the end of Israel. This is the kind of advice that a sane society might pay attention to, but that boat has already sailed. Several decades ago, in fact.
Some people may shed a tear, as Israel sinks beneath the waves, or the flames, as the case may be. I will not be among them.
It’s amazing, it’s the same old story about the tail wagging the dog. Does Israel decide on US foreign policy or is Israel (and the Jews who support it) simply ‘useful idiots’? Given that the roots of Zionism in the 19th century was very much the product of British Imperialism in that it served British colonial interests in the Middle East, is this still the case, except it’s now the US rather than the UK that’s leading the charge?
Undoubtedly, US (Jewish) capitalists have identical interests and objectives to the capitalist class as a whole, isn’t this why the Balfour Declaration came about in the first place? Zionism was first and foremost the creation of the capitalist class.
And of course it serves USUK imperial interests to conflate the condemnation of Israel as a colonial, settler state with anti-semitism. Thus the use of the label, ‘anti-semitic’ is used simply to condemn (and now make it illegal to do so) those who support Palestinian rights. That’s why the Zionist propagandists turned the slaughter of Jews into a propaganda machine for Israel. Note that the slaughter of Russians, Roma, gays, the ‘feeble-minded’, communists, are not included in the exclusive ‘brand’, Holocaust, or for that matter, the vastly larger slaughter of Africans and North and South Americans by the colonialists.
It’s ALL about Palestine, all of it!
I don’t agree with this version any more.
The designation as ‘outpost of empire and settler, colonial state’ is often accompanied by comparisons with the early American colonies or South Africa.
Yet these had obvious reasons, obvious resources, land, furs, minerals, tradable goods and raw materials. Capitalism/empire, after all, always needs to steal and enslave (somewhere) to turn a ‘profit’.
But Israel…?
The country itself is not exactly a hotspot of natural wealth. A few olive groves etc. -the wealth there comes from the donations of other nations and individuals.
Israel as exceptional state only makes sense in terms of a wider consideration of Jewish Power. Pro-Israel Jewish elites effectively control the political discourse, the poltical realm of the empire’s key countries and most of the key nodes in the global financial system. It’s just fact. They are a kind of ‘Brahmin caste’ – and regard themselves as such.
This makes more sense to me (h/t Milo):
http://www.israelshamir.net/English/Love_Labours.htm
You misunderstand the role of Israel in its entirety. It’s not the country and its resources per se but its LOCATION. In this sense it’s an outpost firstly of the UK’s Empire and now the US’. It acts as a ‘spoiler’, as a destabilizer and as as a launchpad for US imperialist strategies in the Middle East and beyond. Israeli Jews have become canon fodder for capitalism. What else is new?
We just have to disagree on this.
I know it is over quoted these days, but:
‘”To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”
Is that not the centre of political debate at this crucial moment?
Jewish Power is plain as day, in the media’s narrative makers, in the financial hubs of the world, in the biggest political lobbies at the core of empire. It essentially is the Neoliberal capitalism and Neoconservative warmongering that plagues the world.
The US and satellites are now little more than the muscle of empire, and those who suck up to the new Brahmins, get a share of the spoils. As violence becomes automated, and Israel expands its role at the centre of a cybernetic world system, the muscle will be abandoned.
The Jewish News media are quite open about all this. They declare Trump as ‘the first Jewish president’. It’s only earnest ‘anti-zionists’, the ignorant and the brainwashed who deny it.
Israel (in the wider sense) is the empire’s religious dark heart.
So where does Israel as the ‘real’ source of this power fit in to this?
So multi-national capitalism is in sway to Israel?
Well of course they do! I mean, come on, it’s all propaganda for the Empire!
I don’t agree with this version any more.
I don’t either. I’m done with sabbat goyism, which is what going around disseminating the “not all jews…” story amounts to. (the goyim know!)
(about my “anti-semitism”, see Israel Shamir, above.)
For more evidence of the origin of Jewish identity as a Brahmin caste (as it is again now), see here:
Nicholas Lysson — Holocaust and Holodomor
and here:
Israel Shahak — Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years
It will be objected that there are surely working-class Jews in Israel, even if they are now rather thin on the ground in other countries. Of course there are — they’re the ones from the Middle East and North Africa, who were coerced into going there, using the standard zionist tactic of false-flag terrorism. The Ashkenazi Jews have the same relationship to Israeli society as they do to European and North American society. As they did to mediaeval Polish and Ukrainian society, explained in the references above.
it’s an outpost firstly of the UK’s Empire and now the US’. It acts as a ‘spoiler’, as a destabilizer and as as a launchpad for US imperialist strategies in the Middle East and beyond. Israeli Jews have become canon fodder for capitalism.
The only occasion for which this, the Chomsky Theory, is even approximately true, is the 1956 Suez Crisis adventure of Britain, France, and Israel, which was promptly vetoed by US imperialism. Never again since have Israelis fought for anybody’s interests but their own. The Suez Canal was not returned to Britain, and Egypt has no oil for US corporations to steal. Even assuming that the 1991 Iraq War #1 was NOT fought in the interest of Israel, they stayed completely out of it. Since 2003, troops (“cannon fodder”) from the US, UK, and other imperial vassal states have been continuously fighting against Israel’s enemies all over the Middle East, while Israel has only fought to sustain or expand its military occupations of Palestine and Lebanon.
Israel is one of the few countries in the world which DOES NOT have any US military bases. There is no reason for it to serve as an “outpost” or “launchpad” for its American Sepoys and Gurkhas; they have aircraft carriers (and Cyprus, and Turkey, and Qatar, and Bahrain, …) for that purpose, paid for with American taxes, as are the weapons which the Israelis use to subjugate the Palestinian and Lebanese untermenschen, who also have nothing which US corporations wish to steal.
You’ve not so neatly sidestepped my essential comments on the role of Israel in US imperialist affairs.
Yes, as part of a larger scheme of replacing British imperialism with US imperialism! It suited the then rulers of the US, it was a strategic move to block the UK’s attempt at stealing back the Suez Canal. We saw this happen in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the Gulf states. It was and is about energy and controlling routes to resources. The biggest consumer of oil on the planet, by a long stretch is the US military and it’s appetite is bottomless.
Again, you sidestep the issue. The objectives of the rulers of Israel (and it seems a goodly part of its Jewish population) and those of the US are one and the same thing, that’s the point! Israel is the US’ ‘mini-imperialism’. Again, it’s Egypt’s location that’s the issue.
There was no need for direct Israeli involvement but they launched endless covert attacks on Iraq, including the destruction of its nuclear reactor. Even the much-vaunted Six-Day War was only six days long because the Israeli economy couldn’t afford a longer one! We saw the same thing go down when Hizbullah knocked the stuffing out of the IDF in Lebanon. By itself the Israeli economy is just too small to engage in major wars.
BTW, I should have said in response to your comment about no US bases in Israel, that Israel IS the base!
I’ve made the case repeatedly, and it is as old as the hills. Marx and Lenin wrote about it over a century ago.
Jewish power resides essentially in the history of banking. (Control credit and you get to control the direction of society.)
From that base, Jews have established a significant over-representation in trade, in the media, in academia and in the poltical realm.
Jewishness is, at root, an amalgam of a set of ideas that all stem from a moral code written in the religious history of the early Christian era, and with that a claim of racial or ethnic distinction.
You cannot escape the core ideas at the heart of Jewishness, which form out of the matrix of its religious past : chosenness, exceptionalism, supremacism, persecution, exodus, ‘return’.
Zionism is just a specific manifestation of these.
The only resolution is to self-identify as a ‘just another human being’ rather than as part of a group that has been both a persecuted minority and an elitist parasite on the back of empires.
Currently, ‘the host’ (the fossil fuel powered Anglo American empire) is dying.
Jewishness is essentially just a bad idea : there are no chosen people, just people.
Read Shamir or Atzmon if you are interested further. I am done.
Israel as exceptional state only makes sense in terms of a wider consideration of Jewish Power. Pro-Israel Jewish elites effectively control the political discourse, the poltical realm of the empire’s key countries and most of the key nodes in the global financial system. It’s just fact.
Jewish Power is plain as day, in the media’s narrative makers, in the financial hubs of the world, in the biggest political lobbies at the core of empire. It essentially is the Neoliberal capitalism and Neoconservative warmongering that plagues the world.
The US and satellites are now little more than the muscle of empire, and those who suck up to the new Brahmins, get a share of the spoils. As violence becomes automated, and Israel expands its role at the centre of a cybernetic world system, the muscle will be abandoned.
Israel (in the wider sense) is the empire’s religious dark heart.
Joachim Martillo — Judonia Rising — The Israel Lobby and American Society
Milosovic,
Thank you for all the links. Educative.
There was an ‘antisemitism’ based on moral philosophy long before the one based on false ideas of racial determinism.
It takes some intellectual integrity to think clearly and speak truthfully in hysterical times like these. So I for one appreciate the honesty.
To ask Jews to renounce Jewishness is a bit like asking Methodists to renounce white Europeanness. Elites of both peoples have enslaved the world and committed horrendous crimes. Yes, it would be better to identify merely as human, or better yet as a spark of sacred life. The realization of that ideal no doubt lies a considerable distance down our evolutionary path.
Levers of great power are held by the hands of a few. Tiny powerful minorities of people, be they Jews or Gentiles, wreak destruction on others but usually escape unscathed. The blood they spill flows from the veins of powerless working and middle class people whose only sins of empire or power are human nature and complacency.
Conspiracy theories are as old as the hills. After all, history is a web of coverups of innumerable conspiracies. The question of who controls whom, or whether anyone at all stands at the helm, is a perplexing question. My guess is that it’s not the US, not the Jews, not the giant banks. After all, would those with great power make themselves vulnerable by advertising themselves garishly to the world? More likely such rulers would exercise power as invisibly and discretely as possible, leaving overt enforcement to unwitting surrogates.
Sorry to pop your bubble, but Africa, no thanks to the missionaries, is chockablock full of Methodists and none that I’ve met were white Europeans.
Oooo, so nitpicky. Change “Methodists” to “white American Christians”. Happy now?
The Zionist Lobby has a complete stranglehold over US politics, finance and media. That is a fact. Pretending otherwise is just denying reality. Anyone who utters the mildest criticism of Israel or who “offends” The Lobby in any way, is immediately vilified, threatened, dismissed from any job they hold, driven from public life, and now face 20 years’ imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. Ordinary people uninvolved in politics now have to take loyalty oaths to Israel or face dismissal. So do hurricane victims seeking welfare assistance.
This is not “ephemeral.”
It is evidence of TOTAL Zionist domination and control.
The situation is little different in France, Britain, Canada and many other countries.
In France, youngsters were prosecuted for wearing BDS T shirts.
Any criticism of Zionism is now punishable with imprisonment as “anti Semitism.”
In Britain, virtually all MPs are fully paid up 30 shekel goy whores in the Friends of Israel.
The Board of Deputies and the Mossad Office at the Embassy run multi million smear campaigns against anyone who “offends” them. They are now seeking full control over the Labour Party, its leadership and membership.
There is a separate Zionist Police Force in Britain run by the Board of Deputies with uniforms and vehicles.
This is mirrored in Canada, where the thugs of the “Jewish Defence League”, classed as a terrorist organisation even in the US, have free rein to beat up anyone they please.
“If you wish to know who rules over you, find out who you are not allowed to criticise.”
like trained seals
“If we get caught, they will just replace us with persons of the same cloth. So it does not matter what you do. America is a golden calf and we will suck it dry, chop it up, and sell it off piece by piece until there is nothing left but the world’s biggest welfare state that we will create and control. Why? Because it is the will of God and America is big enough to take the hit, so we can do it again and again and again. This is what we do to countries that we hate. We destroy them very slowly and make them suffer for refusing to be our slaves.”
– Netanyahu.
reference?
Oy vey dee Goyum know
Hope you got the check ok.
Love, Bibi.
Intergenerationaltrauma: completely echo your thoughts, I was thinking of Diana Johnstone also when I read Edwards article. Hmmm, controlled opposition, gatekeepers….. Everywhere. Sort the wheat from the chaff, stick to the dinky di sites like OffGuardian, The Greanville Post, Moon Of Alabama, The Saker, Caitlin Johnston, Worldwide Socialist Web, tho you can’t comment on all of those.
Mike Whitney was another stalwart of CounterPunch no longer published. There was a period in 2016 when he was just about the only writer on that site criticising the ‘Russia hacked Hillary’s emails’ drivelling.
The big difference, since Cockburn’s death, is that the editors have the political equivalents of ‘cloth ears’. They can’t read the underlying public mood and they grow further and further removed from criticism of imperialism. More, in fact, like Bernie and AOC, The Jacobin and ‘Mother Jones’ with each passing day.
you can still read Mike’s blog here-
http://mikewhitneysgraspingatstraws.blogspot.com
Caity Johnstone is the sh*t! Love her work.
That was kind of astonishing, wasn’t it? Oh well, barovsky is correct, all the good writers they publish can be read elsewhere anyway.
And Caitlin is awesome!