[Peace-discuss] All of which I saw, part of which I was

[C. G. Estabrook]

[1] Chomsky, Cockburn, and Zinn were/are friends and admire(d) one another. If 
you've read what each man has written, it would seem odd to say they're not "in 
the same league."  In fact there are broad areas of agreement among them.

[2] There are many who disagree with Cockburn on anthropogenic climate change 
(including his co-editor at CounterPunch, Jeffrey St. Clair) but no one who has 
read what he's written would think him uninformed on the matter.

[3] A comment from Bill Blum, chosen almost as random (from 5 June last):

"And now we have a black president. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, or Stokely 
Carmichael he's not. His policies and his appointments have all fallen in that 
area that runs from ever so slightly to the left of center to clear conservative 
and imperialist on the right. He's more loath to being identified as, or 
collaborating with, progressives than with right-wingers. *Team Obama sees the 
left as an eccentric old aunt who keeps showing up at family functions, making 
everyone uncomfortable and wishing she'd just go away.*"

As you say, "he might not disagree with much of what Cockburn says."  --CGE


Morton K. Brussel wrote:
> To put Cockburn in the same league as Chomsky or Zinn is a slander to the
> latter. Neither had the quirkiness and stupidity in things like the issue of
> climate change as Cockburn, as well as on other topics.
> 
> And neither had the same quality of vituperation in their arguments. As
> others have noted, Zinn had humility while also having strong feelings and
> ideas. Even the sometimes arrogant Chomsky doesn't argue or talk like
> Cockburn. He has more and deeper understanding. Both are more nuanced from
> everyting I've reade about them. Cockburn is not in the same league.
> 
> And I would take your take your bet regarding Bill Blum; he would never
> subscribe to the idiocies that too frequently occurs in Cockburn's diatribes,
> even if he might not disagree with much of what Cockburn says.  That's the
> sneaky thing about Cockburn; he says sensible things, and then bleats on
> things on which he has no understanding, as for a current example, on the
> climate issue and global warming.
> 
> --mkb
> 
> On Feb 7, 2010, at 4:50 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
>> "In reading his summary of ... history, one is struck by a lack of any
>> nuance, a kind of modern manicheism."
>> 
>> Strange: that was exactly the remark used - even down to the theological
>> term - in the critiques of Howard Zinn published at his death.
>> 
>> Perhaps that's the fate of writers - Chomsky, Cockburn, Zinn - who dare to
>> take a position against liberal relativism.  There are some things that are
>> wrong, unfashionable as it may be to say so (without "nuance").
>> 
>> Cockburn's article is as he says about the "rebirth of the American left"
>> and its subsequent defeat by those who have arrogated the name, like the
>> president.
>> 
>> I bet Bill Blum agrees with Cockburn.
>> 
>> 
>> Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>>> Whatever truths Cockburn speaks is vitiated by bitter hatred for a "left"
>>> which may deviate a bit from his likes and interpretations.  In reading
>>> his summary of post WWII history, one is struck by a lack of any nuance,
>>> a kind of modern manicheism. What in particular hit me in reading his
>>> account was the sentence (my emphasis)
>>>> "An adolescent soul not inoculated by sectarian debate, not enriched by
>>>> the Eighteenth Brumaire and study groups of Capital, is open to any
>>>> infection, such as 9/11 conspiracism *and junk-science climate
>>>> catastrophism* substituting for analysis of political economy at the
>>>> national or global level." In fact, Cockburn reflects here a junk
>>>> critique of climate science, leading one to be wary of the
>>>> veracity/validity  of the rest of his story.
>>> --mkb On Feb 5, 2010, at 11:28 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>>> The Left, 1960-2010 Downhill From Greensboro: By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
>>>> 
>>>> Half a century ago, a new decade ushered in the rebirth of the American
>>>> left [...] For the rest of his term Obama, can press forward with the
>>>> neoliberal agenda that has now flourished through six presidencies. He
>>>> and the Democratic Party display insouciance towards the left’s anger.
>>>> Rightly so. What have they to fear?
>>>> 
>>>> http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn02052010.html
>> 
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