[lbo-talk] Finkestein hangs Marty P out to dry

Eric rayrena at realtime.net
Thu Oct 19 06:23:10 PDT 2006



>A left that reads Chomsky and Finkelstein rather than
>Marx or Lukacs deserves to lose, and lose badly.
>There are enough right-wing populists promoting
>foreshortened models of capitalism as merely the rule
>of sinister Jews, greedy corporations, and
>unscrupulous governments. If you go in for that sort
>of thing, at least become a Haider or Buchanan
>supporter and get it in undiluted form.

You've gone a bit far here, my libcom friend. Chomsky and Finkelstein can't be described as "right-wing populists," either in their moral stance or in their philosophical leanings. Something like "frustrated radical liberal" is more accurate, as railing at greedy corps and irresponsible states because they violate liberal the principles of social contracts and freedom is more their bag. And this notion that somehow the left is losing because of the dark presence of the likes of Chomsky and Finkelstein is a bit of right-wing-populist trope in itself.

Not sure why you want to look to one source or a select group of sources for making sense of the world. Marx himself got stuff wrong and didn't address a lot he should have. Chomsky gets the little things right; it's just on the big picture that he's wrong--consistently, incredibly, stubbornly wrong and inadequate. Why do we need him to be right about everything?



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