[Peace-discuss] Articles of interest

Fri Jul 14 02:31:33 UTC 2017

On Mort’s question, "I’m not sure what Johnstone wants to promote, and is it all to be condemned?”:
she wants to promote inter alia condign contempt for 'Russiagate,’ and her fulminations are by no means all to be condemned.

Russiagate as it grows approaches the significance of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion - or at least the Zimmerman telegram...
Laying bare that fable is worthwhile work, and Johnstone is to be congratulated for it. 

Astonishingly, CounterPunch editor Joshua Frank, who’s written well on David Cobb (Cobb was a major reason I left the Green party over a decade ago), writes 

"So why is Cobb, and many others, so ga-ga over Johnstone? Could it be that she echoes Kremlin talking points [sic] and bogus conspiracies every chance she gets, exciting leftists looking for easy answers to today’s complex problems? Ding Ding. Of course, there’s much, much more. Despite the overwhelming evidence [?] that DNC staffer Seth Rich wasn’t murdered for releasing emails, Johnstone has stood her conspiratorial ground. She’s also written for 9/11 Truth sites, so one can assume she is at the very least sympathetic to their fruitless cause. That’s about all I can take of this self-proclaimed 'rouge journalist'. She’s not worth the energy…” (But he manages two more paragraphs, two reprints, a ‘bullshit’ and one more ‘fucking’…)

So why are soi-disant leftists acting like the Kilkenny cats? You won’t be surprised to hear that I think it's the familiar spirit  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familiar_spirit) of contemporary US liberalism, identity politics. The neuralgic question is what counts as ‘left’ - class politics or ‘intersectioanlity’?  

—CGE

> On Jul 13, 2017, at 8:52 PM, David Green via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
> 
> Mort,
> 
> Perhaps a personal obsession regarding Proyect's disdain for what he calls the "anti-imperial left", but also addressing the larger theme of how the "left" deals with the "right" in the Trump era. It also has to do with how "progressive" media have taken sides on both the Syria issue and the Assange issue. Amy Goodman did host an honest debate a few weeks ago between Assange and Alan Nairn regarding Assange's alleged favoritism towards Trump. But given the feminist implications of Poitras's film, and Goodman's regard for Poitras in relation to Snowden, it will be interesting to see if she will passively "no-platform" Assange in the future. I would be surprised to see him back, and that seems like a telling point and a sign of the times if it's true.
> 
> Anyway, this split is somewhat reflected in the different approaches of Democracy Now and The Real News towards Syria; Aaron Mate has fled from the former to the latter, and is interviewing Max Blumenthal on a regular basis about Syria, and they have been openly critical of DN. Blumenthal and Ben Norton, excellent journalists in my view, are regularly and viciously attacked by Proyect.
> 
> DG
> 
> 
> On Thu Jul 13 2017 20:22:51 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time), Brussel, Morton K <brussel at illinois.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> Why are you advertising these articles? They seem to have little “meat” and many unconvincing slurs. But yes, it is sort of a policing of the ideological boundaries.
> 
> Assange still gets my sympathy and respect. Poitras less so. 
> I’m not sure what Johnstone wants to promote, and is it all to be condemned?
> 
> 
>> On Jul 12, 2017, at 10:48 PM, David Green via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Policing the boundaries of "left" and "right":
>> 
>> https://louisproyect.org/2017/07/10/risk/#comment-334525
>> 
>> 
>> https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/07/11/the-green-party-marks-in-a-media-con-job/
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Peace-discuss mailing list
>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss