No, it’s called reasoning and critical thinking. In your case it’s dogmatism or nothing!

I agree. You are discerning is not the case with some others. I completely concur that Zionism owns the title of a racist/imperial ideology. There is no disagreement whatsoever.

Where I disagree with some here is the extropolation of the PECULIARITIES you note to every expanse of American imperialism was started centuries ago and persists to this day.

The answer to your question is No. However, the main element, desire to rule over others has been with us from the dawn of the history, but each episode has its own PECULARITIES which differentiates one from the others. At one stage of development we may call it ‘colonialism’, another stage of development we define it as ‘imperialism’, ‘fascism’ or now ‘Zionism.’ There is one element that is common in all ‘ism’ listed above, and that is desire to have control over others because they believe in their supremacy of their message, whether is
‘exceptionalism, or ‘choseness’, or ‘civilizing mission’ which is associate with these ideologies. Racism is present in all these ideologies with different intensity. Zionism is with us for a long time but did not have the ‘right’ environment to manifest itself fully. It did not start with HOLOCAUST, it existed before that. Some of the elements of Zionism are seen in other ideologies that has lost credibility.

Deatbeat:

Thank you for your efforts to stimulate healthy discussion on an important tool of division among people, Zionism, at this site to gain knowledge and vision to able us in removing our veil of ignorance and prejudice against each other to help our communities.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7757684583209015812&hl=en

What you are doing Max is the typical bait and switch. You are conflating the way Zionism is manifested in 2008 with all of history. While the overarching goals of rulers is power accumulation the underlying objectives can be different in various epochs.

What the Left has done, especially Noam Chomsky, has been to manipulate history to obscure Zionism. Jeffery Blankfort has been exposing this aspect of Chomskyesque-speak for the past 30 years.

Another way the Left tries to obscure the discussion is by trying to absorb Zionism into the grander and more ambiguous term “imperialism”. Max has consistently presented at least three different definition of the term. The intent of his usage of the term is to obscure. Obscurity doesn’t build solidarity because it goal is to create confusion and distrust.

Shabnam is correct. The Chomskyesque-speak on the Left is to create a column of “gatekeepers” whose intent is to disrupt the Left and to prevent and retard solidarity. This is why the Left weaken the anti-war movement, disrupted Ralph Nader’s run 4 years ago and dramatically weakened the Green Party and stunted all the great work by Peter Camejo.

This is why the problem is NOT the Democrats but so-called “Leftist” like Max Shields who job it is to infiltrate the left with confusion, disruption, distortion, and obfuscation that sows distrust and retard solidarity.

If i were a Palestinian (or really anyone in the ME) I might see this equation you postulate.

But, while, I agree with much of what you’ve posted, I would only ask: do you think the kind of land and resource grabbing, and power/dominance began with Zionism?

Not to confuse the issue, I think zionism IS a preditory form of imperialism, but it is not the only manifestation of it. An elite group can want to do all the things you mentioned and never subscribe to Zionism per se.

That’s my point.

Deadbeat tis is why your posts lack depth of understanding. From this point all of your thinking pours and it just doesn’t square with much of anything except a very thin, superficial view of what’s going on and has for centuries.

Why does a ruling class simply want people to kill one another? (Your usual claim of zionism seems to have foresaken you.)

What is war…

War is about the policy of how the ruling class can manipulate and motivate the WORKING CLASS to kill each other in the interest of the rulers.

YES!!!!

“So the events at Waco, Texas, affected McVeigh more than his “decorated service” in Gulf war I?
Seems a little odd that killing people personally has less of an effect on the psyche than witnessing killing from a distance, so to speak.”

The choice to kill people personally implies a certain (nationalist) identity. Obviously McVeigh didn’t join the US imperial military to pursue an anti-imperialist agenda.

While one can argue that “he was ignorant before joining the military, and knowledgeable afterward” this contrasts with Vidal’s report that says that McVeigh “always” was deeply against injustice. Apparently he didn’t see joining the US military as a form of increasing injustice in the world.

Deadbeat:

The piece you linked to clearly shows that McVeigh was upset that American politicians don’t live up to their high-minded rhetoric (of believing in truth, justice, and human rights). He may be more upset at that than at the production of corpses – he himself had no problem producing corpses.

Deadbeat wrote:

“Brian, you must be a very young man. I seem to recall being conditioned to associate the word “terrorism” to the Palestinian resistance and any kind of Arab aspirations. I also recall the firing of Andrew Young by Jimmy Carter when he clandestinely met with the PLO. That was 1978.

Unfortunately anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism has been part of the American culture for at least the past 41 years.”

The Palestinian issue was and is mainly a Zionist issue, not an Anti-Arab or even Anti-Palestinian issue. If Green Martians, Pink Rodents, Eskimos, or Arabs were on land the Zionists wanted, they would have tried to take the land. The only thing the Zionists cared about was that the land was not in the hands of Jews and that the land was not held by a military force too powerful for them to handle. Since both of those requirements were met, they took the land.

This is why it was only with the project to destroy Iraq (begun with the Iraq/Iran War and accelerated throughout the 1990s) that anti-Arab, as distinct from pro-Zionist, sentiment grew among the American elite and was thus reflected in their propaganda.

This is primarily about ambition and global politics. Before the fall of the Soviet Union the Cold War was the primary concern for the West. Hence there was no widespread anti-Arab sentiment because the West didn’t want Arabs en mass to flock to the Soviet banner.

No more Soviet threat meant the West could focus on anti-Arab propaganda as a means of destabilizing the entire Arab population and associated regions. And, again, I refer you to the Gulf War as the first major campaign to demonize Arabs, a campaign which took on vast new dimensions following 9/11.

On a side note, terrorizing Arabs (especially middle-eastern ones) is the primary motivation behind Western torture of “terrorists”. The Left has utterly failed in analyzing torture – focusing on the limp “it doesn’t work” objection. Few if any on the left have mentioned that torture itself is an act of perpetual war – it goes hand-in-hand with imperial activities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

Racism in it’s classic definition (hatred of a particular race) does not exist. Emotions, including hatred, derive from social relations. So if you have a certain group of people who desire to steal, they look around them, find another group of people who they think they can steal from, they try out theft and see how it goes. If it’s successful (they achieve less pain from the theft than pleasure from the plundered booty) they undertake more and more theft, and develop “hatred” for the group they are stealing from. The group they are stealing from is based on convenience *only*. Whites don’t steal from blacks because they are racist, they steal from blacks because they CAN.

Israelis don’t steal from Palestinians because they are anti-Palestinian or anti-Muslim, they steal from them because they *can*, and because they want the particular land that the Palestinians previously inhabited.

European immigrants to America didn’t steal from the indigeous population because they hated them, they stole from them because the indigenous population had things they wanted (mostly, land).

War is not about hatred, it’s about theft. The hatred is the internal emotional REACTION that occurs between groups locked in a material struggle, a struggle that ALWAYS begins prior to the development of the hatred.

The only way to prevent war is to stop it, by force. Greater force to prevent theft must be present to counter the force that causes theft. Force doesn’t necessarily mean “force of arms” – it can easily be institutional force, like creating and maintaining systems of justice and it’s economic/political counterpart – socialism.

Iraqis are “hajjis” now to the American military, and those same soldiers will refer to them as merely “Iraqis” once the *material struggle* has concluded, just like the Japanese were “Japs” during World War II and afterward were “Japanese” and any number of other examples show.

Theories of White Supremacy only developed *after* the successful theft by whites of non-whites. White Supremacy is derived from an emotional reaction caused by the desire to continue stealing – it’s a kind of justification for that stealing.

I’ll give you this, there are “leftists” who are missing the boat, and I think your posts are illustrative of that type of “leftist”.

America massarcred the left long ago. It now lingers as a memory and from time to time appears as a apparition in the Green Party or a congressperson here and there; but as a movement it is dead.

Where I agree with Petras is his pointing to the South. I think there are excellent models of economic democracy in Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, etc. From that vantage point, Obama and his campaign is NADA.

DB, you say the Obama “Campaign” creates an opportunity for the “left”. This is an incredible leap of faith. For one second have you ever thought that an Obama “win” would do just the opposite. Think about it. There has been no effective pressure on Obama, as there was none for B. Clinton, to be anything more than the DLC’s boy. The advisors will run the executive policies. Look at who they are. The Obama brand will muffle the Dem faux progressives as they battle right-wing Republican attacks that are made of out of whole cloth. Energies will be mis-spent and Obama will have American troops in god knows what country. The Repubs might even find “cause” to impeach him before it’s all said and done.

What I can’t understand Deadbeat is how a person like you who follows these things, and has for a long time, cannot see deja vu all over again with the Dems, their Candidate, and the Campaign.

Again, take a look at the Frank article (hope he publishes it here). He pretty well nails it. I’d also suggest you read the Michael Novick article. http://academic.udayton.edu/race/2008ElectionandRacism/Obama/Obama93.htm

What is called for, DB, is not a transitional POTUS. I submit that that is at best a delusion and will actually hinder real change. We need to be prepared for economic collapse and what will rise from the ashes. Look around DB, time has runout on the empire. It can still do damage in the world whether under an Obama or McCain regime. It looks like it will not go down quietly ala UK, but is an unsustainable, overextended empire.

Look Max, you still don’t get it. What is happening before your eyes is the meaning of the Obama CAMPAIGN.

I’d advice you READ what the late Peter Camejo said of Obama and his campaign. He believed that Obama will defeat John McCain and he UNDERSTANDS the meaning of the tendency that is building among the masses. I guess he must be an “Obamamanic” because he predicts an Obama victory.

The reason I want to see Obama win is because the Obama CAMPAIGN creates an OPPORTUNITY for the Left. You and others on the Left are so BLINDED by doctrine that you spend all your time consumed by Obama’s relationship to the power elites rather than Obama campaign’s relationship to the MASSES.

You JUST don’t get it Max but when you belittle Obama’s supporters as “maniacs” or some other colorful phrase it alienates his supporters from the Left and most importantly it alienates African Americans from the Left. What you are implying Max is that the Civil Rights movement was a wasted effort.

Wiser folks like Camejo and even Ron Jacobs in his excellent article today implies a recognition that Obama is a symbolic embodiment of change as comprehended by the MASSES.

Obama is not the change you want Max (if that is really what you want). However Obama is the change that the masses at its current level of conscientiousness is rallying behind. Yet the Obama campaign provides an opportunity for the Left to engage people many of whom are becoming active for the first time. Many of whom want to be engaged; many of whom crave dialogue.

This is happening all around you. In the workplace, at the checkout counter, at the bowling alleys, almost everywhere. But unfortunately Max you’d rather be disengaged because you are stuck in doctrine and can only see Obama as a “ruling class hack”.

You so are disconnect from the young people who support Obama and African Americans who rallied around Obama when he faced racist attacks from both Clinton, McCain, and the media, and the general discontent that is growing among the masses.

At best Max you want to be perched on your high and mighty mountain with your high and mighty rhetoric only to MOCK the masses for rallying around Obama.

How many times do I have to say that HE WILL eventually DISAPPOINT his supporters, especially because of his obvious appeasements to Zionism, militarism, and imperialism. Thus the Left MUST be in position to take advantage of that opening. That is the essence of the Miah article and the essence of the wisdom of the late Peter Camejo who BTW fully supports Nader’s 2008 run but unlike you Max, he can clearly articulate how to the Left should respond to the Obama campaign without alienating those who support Obama. Camejo wants the Left to be in position. This is why Camejo gave so much of himself to the Green Party.

The last major opportunity for the Left was the anti-war movement of 2003 and Nader’s run in 2004. Unfortunately the Left squandered that opportunity primarily due to its lack of commitments and lack of adherence to principles. Since the Left assisted in creating the void now being filled by Obama, the Left ironically through the Obama campaign has fortunately been given another opportunity.

Let’s see Max whether or not the Left fucks it up again going in your sectarian direction or alters its tactics. If the articles on DV are any indication I’m not very optimistic. I really don’t see the Left being at the level of conscientiousness needed to reach out to the masses.

I can say this Obama is a pawn of the power elite. You don’t bargain with pawns, you show them for what they are and then figure out how to work around them. He represents a ruling class that is the enemy of the poor working class. He is part of the war machine that as I write this is killing children, babies and civilians in spots thousands of miles away.

There is nothing in his is rhetoric that disavows his bond to this power elite and the imperialism that it breeds.

At long last the admission – Deadbeat is an unabashed, Obamamaniac – and honest to goodness, believer in the BIG FRAUD!

The problem Max is that your agenda demagogic by using leftist rhetoric to obfuscate Zionism. You have no desire to fight racism and therefore there is little hope to building solidarity with people who are seriously fighting that ongoing ruling class tactic. In fact Max you’ll betray any such attempt. This engagement only reveals your duplicity.

For example, Max since it seems you cannot read and your goal is only hellbent on distortion, the Miah quote speaks to Obama’s CAMPAIGN while Novak is focused on Obama. Miah is analyzing the current among the masses while Novak is focused on the individual at the head of the Democratic Party ticket.

Therefore you are unfairly misusing Novak’s comment about Obama the individual to rebut Miah analysis about the current discontent of the masses and the achievement of the masses via the civil right movements.

Essentially Max you cannot describe yourself as a leftist since you belittle these achieve and what the Obama campaign means to the masses and its historical context. Failing to analyze this means a failure to connect with the masses.

However your agenda is not to connect with the masses but to DISRUPT the masses. Otherwise you would be against Zionism in ALL ASPECTS rather than using the hallowed out term “Imperialism” to obfuscate it. That is demagogy and dishonesty.

I think you need to read Ron Jacobs and Dr. James Petras articles today.

Racism was not invented in the USA; you do know that right? And it’s no more “virulent” in the USA than else where where it has been employed.

And then, Deadbeat says: “In fact Max you define and then redefine the term. Now “imperialism” means to you the contest of power. Prior, your definition of “imperialism” is the conquest of resources and LAND.”

Power and the conquest of land are one and the same. This is not a re-definition. Land/natural resources are the basis of all wealth and power. Think about it. Imperialism is the conquest of those sources for securing power and wealth. Racism is a means to those ends – NOT AND END.

And furthermore, Deadbeat: “Obama’s CAMPAIGN represents CHANGE and the success of the civil right’s movement. It also represent discontent among the mass as well. ”

At long last the admission – Deadbeat is an unabashed, Obamamaniac – and honest to goodness, believer in the BIG FRAUD!

Say no more your cover is blown!!

To your Miah quote, I add from Michael Novick’s Obama, Imperialism and the Paradox of Plenty Amid Poverty:

“The oppressed, colonized and exploited inside the US must take responsibility for our own survival and future, in the first place by making common cause with the oppressed, exploited and colonized around the world, and by learning from them. We need to apply the methods of horizontal organizing, of environmentally-sound food production, of factory and land takeovers that are developing in Latin America, Africa and Asia. We need to recognize that those who rule this society – those who benefit from the paradox of plenty amid poverty – are our enemies. White supremacy, neo-colonialism and other forms of privilege within the empire will only bind us to a sinking ship and take us down with it. It is time to make a break with illusion, and end our identification with the Empire and the oppressor. We need to begin to strategize now, not how to ensure Obama’s election, but how to deal with the Empire if Obama indeed becomes Emperor.”

But Deadbeat, I must, once again reconnect you to your own wayward thinking. First, you seem to be connecting Mcveigh with 9-11. While I agree about the false assumptions made at the time of Okalahoma, you are building a bridge to nowhere.

…and…

Do you really think racism and zionism exist without imperialism? Imperialism is the means by which the powerful keep their power and grow it. What is racism? What is zionism? Why would such isms exist if not to “keep the powerful powerful and grow their power”?

Max we’ve been through this exercise before. You know my position and you seek to constantly distort it with your diversionary and Chomskyesque rhetoric.

What Chomsky and YOU have adeptly done is to misrepresent the term “Imperialism” to OBSCURE a virulent form of racism as practiced within the USA.

Racism exist to divide and conquer and to support the ruling class. When you deliberately attempt to obscure the issue because of your own agenda you are actually assisting the ruling class and not engaged in its defeat. It is a REACTIONARY stance not a radical one.

The issue of McVeigh and 9-11 that I point to is that the American people has been CONDITIONED to accept anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism. Since many on the LEFT like you Max rather than CONFRONT this problem you prefer to obscure it by mislabeling it “imperialism”.

In fact Max you define and then redefine the term. Now “imperialism” means to you the contest of power. Prior, your definition of “imperialism” is the conquest of resources and LAND. Thus again Max you prove yourself to be sowing confusion rather than clarity which is why confronting RACISM and ZIONISM with clarity can more directly inoculate the American people from one of the most devastating tactics employed by the ruling class.

The empire is DONE. If Obama becomes president he will be the faux cause. He is just what the doctor calls for when empires are collapsing. He is the symbol of the oppressed and colonized without any of the fight…a spineless, defanged genuflector – to Zionism, Imperialism and to the white power structure.

No Max, Obama is not a “faux” cause. Obama’s CAMPAIGN represents CHANGE and the success of the civil right’s movement. It also represent discontent among the mass as well. Unfortunately Max, you and many members of the Left prefer to isolate yourself and wallow either in doctrine or diversion. I can’t seem to figure out which one.

I’ll repost the article by Malik Miah so you can read what a clearminded leftist (Socialist) has to say:

Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, the Obama ascendancy reflects some fundamental changes in society that must be recognized by those of us seeking a working class government and state. The societal changes are based on the victory of the civil rights revolution of the 1960s. …

That’s why the campaigns of progressive third parties are important electorally. But for me the stance of attacking Obama as a Democrat, quoting Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech, and going all out for a small socialist group’s campaign on ideological grounds, or for the Green Party campaign of Cynthia McKinney or the “independent” candidacy of Ralph Nader, is not the most effective way to influence those who will become disillusioned.

[1]“Was McVeigh action a response to “Imperialism” as Brian Koontz suggests or something else?”

The primary event [Gore Vidal] thought led to McVeigh was the Waco killings, which means that McVeigh was *not* an anti-imperialist – rather that he was a nationalist who opposed the effect the American state was having on it’s own citizens.

I found a link to McVeigh’s own words about his motivations. So rather than [mis?]quote Videl it’s better to get it directly from the source:

The administration has said that Iraq has no right to stockpile chemical or biological weapons (”weapons of mass destruction”) — mainly because they have used them in the past.

Remember Dresden? How about Hanoi? Tripoli? Baghdad? What about the big ones — Hiroshima and Nagasaki? (At these two locations, the U.S. killed at least 150,000 non-combatants — mostly women and children — in the blink of an eye. Thousands more took hours, days, weeks, or months to die.)

Clearly McVeigh begins his essay not about Waco but about the history of violence conducted by the United States government.

[2]“Why is the American people so conditioned and indoctrinated to hate Arabs and Muslim people?”

Prior to 1991 (the Gulf War) I recall virtually no state propaganda against Arabs or Muslims, even with Israel’s substantial relationship with the US state (Muslims in Afghanistan were the US state’s allies in the 1980s).

Brian, you must be a very young man. I seem to recall being conditioned to associate the word “terrorism” to the Palestinian resistance and any kind of Arab aspirations. I also recall the firing of Andrew Young by Jimmy Carter when he clandestinely met with the PLO. That was 1978.

Unfortunately anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism has been part of the American culture for at least the past 41 years.

Brian concludes…
9/11 changed the entire propaganda model for Washington, as well as altered real foreign policy.

Brian, The Project of New American Century was developed in 1998. Then there was the Iraqi Accountibilty Act which was signed by Clinton with the direct goal of “Regime Change”. The sanctions that is attributed to the death of 500,000 Iraqi children were also implemented during the Clinton years. The Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 led to harassment of Arab and Muslim citizens because the media promoted the idea that the bombing was perpetrated by “Middle Easterners” because of the parade of “anti-terrorism” expert like Steven Emerson who is an ardent Zionist.

Brian, unfortunately your response illustrates the blind spot on the Left and the long term failure of the Left to confront Zionism in the USA. The Left, especially Noam Chomsky, has confused many activists by trying to explain away Zionism as “Imperialism”.

This failure is what helped to condition and indoctrinate Americans to embrace the War on Iraq and accept anti-Arab and anti-Muslim rhetoric. Had the Left inoculated Americans by taking a firm and principled stance against ALL FORMS OF RACISM, then it would be much more difficult for the ruling class to take this country to War in the Middle East. IMO that is the LESSON of 9-11 and Oklahoma City.

The Left and especially radicals should think outside of the terms set by the ruling class. Unfortunately Robert Jensen doesn’t.

But Deadbeat, I must, once again reconnect you to your own wayward thinking. First, you seem to be connecting Mcveigh with 9-11. While I agree about the false assumptions made at the time of Okalahoma, you are building a bridge to nowhere.

For what it’s worth, McVeigh came on the heels of the first “attack” on the Trade Center – if you’ll recall. This is not an apology for Emerson who may have known more…but let’s not speculate on that…

The main issue I have with your analysis, is not simply the disconnects between your sentences and your circular discussion about “leftists” “obscuring” this that and the other thing which is at once tiring and amusing.

No, what is particularly annoying is your attempt to make history a joke. You seem hell bent on obfiscating the very words “empire” and “imperialism” as if these are fictions devised by the “left” who use them to obscure the role of racism and zionism. You have your dog and tail confused, Deadbeat. And that is more than a little annoying.

Do you really think racism and zionism exist without imperialism? Imperialism is the means by which the powerful keep their power and grow it. What is racism? What is zionism? Why would such isms exist if not to “keep the powerful powerful and grow their power”?

Barrack Obama is a tool of that imperialism. He has the spinelessness of a Democrat, but he is the last ditch effort by the powerful elite to see if they can live long enough without losing it all. Obama is the flip-side of racism. He says to the nation – I am your answer to poverty. Like it or not Obama is a tool of white supremacy elite imperial power.

I think the poor, and as Fanon called them – the wretched of the earth must make their way through global solidarity. Stop looking for the empire to change its stripes. Obama is a white man/woman’s attempt at purifying the lap of luxury the American imperial empire has given them…us.

The empire is DONE. If Obama becomes president he will be the faux cause. He is just what the doctor calls for when empires are collapsing. He is the symbol of the oppressed and colonized without any of the fight…a spineless, defanged genuflector – to Zionism, Imperialism and to the white power structure.