My last critique of what you said is based on this.

I really don’t think that Obama is a learning/teaching moment for African Americans regarding Zionism

Max I never said that Obama is a “learning/teaching” moment for African Americans regarding Zionism. Although Max, the converse of your premise is that Obama COULD be such a teaching moment for everyone and I see that as an opportunity.

What I am saying however is that people of color are highly attuned to confronting white supremacy that they can be easily enlisted into confronting Zionism as yet another form of racism. With the demographic of the U.S. shifting toward people of color the Left should work with people of color on issues that are sensitive to them such as racism. By finding solidarity with people of color, IMO, Zionism can be confronted.

This use of Obama as a means of channeling black people into a left/progressive “direction” is just beyond rationality. Obama is a pull in the opposite direction. He is a “drag” on a progressive movement.

Max, African Americans are much further to the left than the general population. Blacks are further to the Left than Latinos and Whites. Therefore African American are much more likely to embrace progressive solutions. As you correct state Obama is a “drag” on a progressive movement but on the other hand if Obama is painted as the Zionist that he is, IMO, he will QUICKLY lose the support of African Americans and other people of color. The primary focus on Obama was is “centrism” and carrying water for “imperialism” rather than his kowtowing to Zionism. THAT is the main reason why Obama had to jettison Rev. Wright when Wright defended Louis Farrakhan’s stance against Zionism during the National Press Club. IMO this is the key to weakening Obama among Blacks.

But I see no way for Obama to provide a lesson for African Amerians about the evils of Zionism. As I said, I can think of no other Americans outside of Arab/Islamic/Palestinians who have as clear a sense of that RIGHT NOW.

The problem Max is that the root of Zionism’s power today is in the United States and NOT in the Middle East. As many on the Left argue, Israel is the U.S. “junior” partner. If that is true and if the U.S. “calls the shots” that means that Zionism has to be confronted on U.S. soil. Therefore Arabs, Islamic, and Palestinians and other anti-Zionism must build solidarity HERE in the United States to confront Zionism. The best way to do that is through communities of color who has the history and legacy of fighting racism in the United States.

It is true that Obama is everything Bill Clinton was and more. He has always been just that. I said during the campaign, Deadbeat, and you disagreed regularly, that Obama was just a brown version of William Jefferson Clinton. His whole campaign, and now his staff and his approach as we see it unfolding is a page from Clinton administration. If Hillary had not run, you can bet everyone of her advisors would have been his – including Clinton, himself right from the very first primary, the first dollar donated.

I cannot recall disagreeing with you about a comparison of Obama with WJC. I did in fact say that Obama triangulated the Left. However again Max to just say that Obama is a “brown” WJC misses a whole lot of nuance. It misses the Left’s inability to build solidarity with communities of color. It misses the race baiting and the southern strategy of both Clinton and McCain. My point is that you cannot merely use simplistic comparison and the same old critiques and tactic on Obama because of how race is being applied here. Sure Obama is staffing his Administration with the same old Clintonites but then again many of these Clintonites are Zionists. This, IMO, is Obama weak spot and where IMO the Left can do the most damage to tarnish his image.

Another point I tried to convey is that African Americans are PRAGMATIC voters and why Black will not vote for 3rd Party candidates. What this means is that Blacks understand that the system is rigged but will vote for the lesser evil candidate since POLICY has a major effect on their day-to-day lives. This is what I means when I insist that the Left address concrete “everyday” issues rather than abstractions.

There is no mystery here. The only mystery is how this guy is going to deal with his hawks on war, and the corporate wolves. He’s shown himself, like Clinton, to be rather weak when confronted with the power structure. He must be in command if he is not totally swallowed up as was Clinton and George W. He’s young (mostly because we delay maturity in the US) and inexperienced. His inclination is to cowtow to power. I like that “violin player” metaphor – hold the violin with the left and play with the right – yea that’s Obama – Dem business as usual in a very unusual world.

I think Obama is in a strong position regarding corporate power than Clinton but IMO is weaker when it comes to Zionism. Obama is much more beholding to Zionism than Clinton. However corporations know that in this economic climate they may have to make some “slight concessions”. I think that Obama will throw enough of a bone to the Left to keep it off-stride. This make Obama a much harder target to attack without risking alienation by the very people the Left needs to attract. This is why the typical Left-wing rhetoric may actually be counterproductive and has to be nuanced in order to avoid alienation.

Max I do agree with you is that it is a very unusual world which mean that a reevaluation of tactics are very much needed. But I think this article by Dr. Petras is hinting at where Obama is weakest among people of color and IMO this is where rubber meets the road of testing the Left. The Left has been extremely weak and tepid on confronting Zionism and I agree with Petras that Obama rise could not have occurred without his fealty to Zionism. Obama make this almost “IN YO’ FACE” to such an extent that it cannot be ignored or obscured without seriously trying.

This use of Obama as a means of channeling black people into a left/progressive “direction” is just beyond rationality. Obama is a pull in the opposite direction. He is a “drag” on a progressive movement.

But I see no way for Obama to provide a lesson for African Amerians about the evils of Zionism. As I said, I can think of no other Americans outside of Arab/Islamic/Palestinians who have as clear a sense of that RIGHT NOW.

It is true that Obama is everything Bill Clinton was and more. He has always been just that. I said during the campaign, Deadbeat, and you disagreed regularly, that Obama was just a brown version of William Jefferson Clinton. His whole campaign, and now his staff and his approach as we see it unfolding is a page from Clinton administration. If Hillary had not run, you can bet everyone of her advisors would have been his – including Clinton, himself right from the very first primary, the first dollar donated.

There is no mystery here. The only mystery is how this guy is going to deal with his hawks on war, and the corporate wolves. He’s shown himself, like Clinton, to be rather weak when confronted with the power structure. He must be in command if he is not totally swallowed up as was Clinton and George W. He’s young (mostly because we delay maturity in the US) and inexperienced. His inclination is to cowtow to power. I like that “violin player” metaphor – hold the violin with the left and play with the right – yea that’s Obama – Dem business as usual in a very unusual world.

“The Obama experience illustrates how a small, close knit, well-organized and well financed minority operating through prestigious professional posts and powerful economic enterprises can penetrate major political institutions, capture upwardly mobile politicians and ‘turn’ them into willing accomplices …”

And, perhaps more so, this one:

“The ascent of a minority of ambitious power-driven political operatives acting first and foremost for a militarist colonial power in a strategic region of the world economy represents the biggest threat to world peace and to US democratic values in recent history.”

While our mainstream media, academics and “public thinkers” pooh-pooh “conspiracy theories” as the pablum of fanatics &/or the irrational, we see before our eyes–if only we dare look–a conspiracy of global proportions to eviscerate American cultural and moral values and to dim our political consciousness.

Zionfascism, masquerading as a defense of the Jewish people, has as much to do with combatting anti-Semitism as Naziism had to do with defending the rights of the German people. (Obviously, any political ideology purporting to combat anti-Semitism would have to defend the rights of the Semitic Palestinian people! Zionism’s sordid treatment of Palestinians and other Arab/Semitic populations illuminates the record of such “defense.”)

Mr. Petras’ scholarship and careful connection of dots ought to bring the nature of the challenge to our democracy to the attention of all serious social critics and thinkers. Like Mearsheimer and Walt, like Jimmy Carter, Petras echoes Cicero to warn us that the greatest dangers to our Republic lie within our own inability to discern our own best interests and our inability to discern our true enemies.

It may end up being the tail that wags America over the precipice and into oblivion.

Poetic justice, methinks!

Israel is positioned so well in Western power politics because it holds a Middle Eastern monopoly on the combination of like minded imperial ambition and a powerful military.

When one is the only game in town, one can name the price for services rendered. As far as the US ruling class is concerned, that price is well worth it.

You are predictable for sure.

Again, I agree with much of what you’re saying, but it is hard to imagine that the American Imperial Empire, given its history, would not be with or without Zionism. Hopefully there is agreement there.

That zionism has been a tic in the skin of American Imperial Empire seems to be true.

Where you go off the tracks is by reiterating this notion that there is a left (is Petras in the left camp or no? Is he a special case of the American “left”?) that is “obfuscating” zionism. I agree that different people have different takes. I also can smell a phony “leftist” who wants to protect the vile behavior of the imperial zionists. But I will not presume to read the minds/motives of those who are clearly mindful and angered by zionism/Israel while discerning its context in the world at large.

I’d ask that you not presume mine from some kind of Left “obfuscation” notion.

Max

I see an anti-Zionist group who see everything through the prism of Zionism as if empire and its trappings had not long ago existed. I think that is dangerous because it purports that if you squeeze the pimple you’ve cured the acne (which is a relatively harmless way of describing something I think is anything but harmless).

Max I actually agree with your caution. There was a tendency to ignore Zionism as a problem because often the Right were the ones pointing this issue out. With the Right’s xenophobia and arguments tinged with anti-Antisemitism made it all too easy to be dismiss by the Left.

The argument however is not to see Zionism as a isolate part of “Empire” but to understand how Zionism had grown to influence “Empire”. “Empire”, as I see it, is the aggregate of all that is wrong. It is too abstract a term. People however see the “everyday” — the concrete issues. You already have a group of people who have been struggling against racism as part of their everyday lives and they fully understand it. This is why I’ve been advocating that the Left find solidarity with people of color and frame Zionism as the racist ideology that it is. This will IMO will help enlist people of color to confront this ideology as they confront White Supremacy.

I think your cautionary concerns at best is why the Left has avoided really confronting Zionism. However Jews for the most part has never faced the level of persecution in the U.S. as people of color has. Therefore confronting Zionism in the U.S. will not have the kind of backlash against Jews that many on the Left fears. However IMO if Zionism is not confronted it could one day have a severe backlash against Jews because without educating people that Zionism is incompatible with Judaism ignorance will reign and that ignorance could have severe and irreparable consequences.

Because Zionism was not confront when it was a “pimple” Max it has spread across its host and that is a major concern. That I think is the main point of Petras’ article. The Left unfortunately has been complicit in its silence and obfuscation of this problem.

Humans are divided by culture and power, both of which respond and change quite rapidly when conditions change.

The sooner we stop believing in deep group differences, the better.

One planet, one people…

Just so we don’t confuse things here. I agree that Zionism is an important part of the critique in terms of Obama (Obama is really a symbol of the power structure, let’s not forget, with a tad more mythology going for him).

I see an anti-Zionist group who see everything through the prism of Zionism as if empire and its trappings had not long ago existed. I think that is dangerous because it purports that if you squeeze the pimple you’ve cured the acne (which is a relatively harmless way of describing something I think is anything but harmless).

Zionism is a symptom and a manifestation of a problem of domination and empire. Obama has aligned himself with it. In some ways it is quite natural for the number one imperial empire to see itself in its client. Yes, there is more to the mythology of Zionism and its relationship to American politics than simply partners in crimes against humanity (of which both are in perpetual denial). The emotional underpinnings have been played to the hilt. It forms the glue that binds the purely “evil” manifestations of empire. Empires don’t live as if they are evil entities. They have a super-ego to rationalize even the most brutal acts.

But, it is always dangerous to see all of this as Zionism. It is right to point out the evil doings of Israel, and to see them in the clearest way possible and to call them out, to do whatever we can to stop the madness perpetuated by one and enabled by the other imperial forces.

But again, if we were to see the demise of Israel or Zionism we would not have solved our “problem”. Obama and the empire are not dependent upon Israel if it were to disappear. But I submit that American politics and US history is clearly reflected in Israeli/Zionist recent history – not the other way around.