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

[Eric]

>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?