[lbo-talk] Chomsky/Berman

[Seth Kulick]

> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:20:21 -0400
> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Tony Judt on the death of liberalism in
> 	America
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Message-ID: <2EA9EC6F-D6D1-4327-AEA5-9E2C0D2A6B1F at panix.com>
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> 
> On Sep 13, 2006, at 7:34 PM, Jerry Monaco wrote:
> 
> > Nervous, shaky, edgy, hopping, bobbing, weaving, a hidden sense of  
> > paranoia, a directionless intellectuality, a patina of the old  
> > "Partisan Review" style, used to hide his contentless insults  
> > against the likes of Chomsky, Zinn, Elsberg, etc.
> 
> Yeah, total weasel. Did you see him debate Chomsky on Israel at a  
> Socialist Scholars Conference in the 80s? He came off as a sputtering  
> dork, against Noam's footnoted perfect paragraphs.
> 
> Doug
> 
> 
I've got to find my tapes of that, which I got from David Barsamian about a
a decade ago.  The lowest moment is during the Q&A, when somebody brings
up Faurrison, and Berman goes on about "I happen to have the most recent
publication by La Vielle Taupe right here, since I thought this might
come up".  What a creep.  He also starts out by quoting Bernard Lewis as
to how everybody has a double standard against Israel, and I think his most
memorable line is "Zionism is about the right of Jews in the Middle East to
have an army".  I'm pretty sure he actually said that.  It's either Chomsky 
quoting Irving Howe or Berman making some  crack about college students being 
against Israel or some such thing, and  Chomsky mentioning in passing "so 
unlike the working class blokes in the Dissent editorial office".  very 
amusing.  The debate was also with Ellen Willis, who doesn't say a word after 
her opening statement.