John K. Taber wrote:
>Phew.
>I appreciate Max very much. He has been very helpful
>explaining things to me when I have questions.
>
>I do not appreciate vituperation like yours. I can
>understand that you might disagree with him, but surely
>you can do so coherently.
>
>John K. Taber
Given what i have seen on this list, and in response to far less or no provocation, i am not inclined to think i went over the top in re to Max. Max said: "the preoccupation with Yids on this list by some people creeps me out." Now i am absolutely amazed that this sort of open and disgusting antisemite baiting can occur on a LEFT list when the subject of Israel comes up-- and be met with silence! I found it particularly slimy as it came right after I merely forwarded a relevant piece by Finkelstein to an already existing thread. It would have been bad enough if he had said the 'preoccupation with jews on this list creeps him out" -- but no, he said a preoccupation with the "Yids" --directly insinuating outright vile antisemitism. Furthermore, I was utterly shocked that no one seemed to notice. Amazing!
I have been on a few left lists that are NOT predominately American and that span the wide left from social democrats to anarchists and on which I coudn't imagine someone making this sort of comment without being unceremoniously told to fuck-off. At some point the American LEFT has got to stop being so damn apolegetic and cringing --to stop tiptoeing around in order to avoid being labelled antisemitic. Indeed, its amazing the degree to which being an ANTI-'anti-semite' substitutes for being a principled anti-racist in N. America. Practically every bigot in N. America boasts to being the best most avowed anti-'anti-semite',regardless of how they express themselves in regards to other ethnic grps. Hell, in the US in particular, bigots love to use the specter of antisemitism to ideologically police or beat down Blacks(and others) as well as critics of US policy -- and the US lefts' often sordid complicity in all this merits a little more than embarrassed silence.
The irony in all this though, not that Max is sharp enough to pick up on it, is that the people who have been most obsessed with 'Jews' on this list have actually been Max and de Long. Everytime time someone criticizes Israel or goes beyong the safe, permitted liberal framework of calling for 'peace and love' in the M.E. you just know these two see the words 'Jew' and 'Yid' -- that their liberal paranoia predisposes them to see NAZI antisemitic carictures with every post in solidarity with palestenians that isnt sufficiently cringing enough, or to read Z.O.G. every time someone discusses the ideological and political roots of Zionism's colonial racism. I mean my god, look at the bizarre hyberbole that has been coming out of deLong -- "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"! Neither of these two can read "Israel" in a critical post without seeing "Yid". The REAL left on this list has better things to do than pander to this paranoid liberal DP drivel.
-p