The strange journey of Stephen Schwartz

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Comrades may recall a visitation here a while back from Stephen Schwartz, a 
journalist and author who started out as a "libertarian socialist" in the 
1960s but who defected to the rightwing in the 1980s. At one point, he 
snitched on Central American solidarity organizations in the Bay Area on 
behalf of the Reagan White House  The exchanges with him were prompted by 
my questioning the wisdom of Against the Current editor Susan Weissman 
maintaining a friendship with this creep and inviting him on as a regular 
guest on her Pacifica radio show in LA. Schwartz's trajectory is nearly 
identical to the one being followed by Hitchens now. He is a regular 
contributor to William F. Buckley's National Review and William Kristol's 
Weekly Standard.

However, in a departure from the heavily Judeo-Christian emphasis of these 
conservative publications, Schwartz has now found a new affiliation, namely 
with Islam. For an extremely informative analysis of this character, I 
recommend a lengthy article by Bill White at www.Pravda.RU:


Pravda.RU:Columnists:More in detail

19:38 2002-02-14

BILL WHITE: STEPHEN SCHWARTZ AND THE WAVE OF ANTI-SAUDI HATE HOW A ONE-TIME 
?LIBERTARIAN SOCIALIST? CROSSED OVER TO THE ZIONIST DARK-SIDE

?Terror ? meaning the infliction of physical violence on the innocent, 
through such acts as suicide bombings in public places ? is the 
quintessence of militant Islamic fundamentalism ? [It] rejects any and all 
coexistence with Judaism and Christianity ? like Nazism and Communism, [it] 
will be a threat to the peace of the world as long as it is allowed to 
flourish under Saudi patronage.?

So wrote neo-conservative convert Stephen Schwartz in an October 25, 2001 
article in National Review. Over the past four years, Schwartz has steadily 
been building a name for himself as a commentator on Islam, and is working 
on a book on the subject called the ?Two Faces Of Islam." But many have 
been confused by his changing perceptions of the Muslim faith. After all, 
it was only a few years ago when Schwartz made his leap from obituary page 
writer at the San Francisco Chronicle to religious expert stressing the 
similarities between Islam and Judaism (a way of saying it is similar to 
being good), briefly converting to a Sufi Muslim, and calling himself 
?Suleyman Ahmad? on the way. As Schwartz wrote in a December 31, 1997 San 
Francisco Chronicle article on the story of Ramadan:

?[Praying at night] is among many similarities between Islam and Judaism, 
in that mystically oriented Jews pray at night.?

And on April 7, 1998, when he described the practices of the holiday Eid 
Al-Adha, he wrote:

?The killing of the sheep recalls the story of Abraham and his son, which 
is shared, with some differences, by Jews, Christians and Muslims.?

These reports hardly seem to reflect a rejection of ?any and all 
coexistence with Judaism and Christianity?, as Schwartz would conclude 
three and a half years later.

Many are wondering how this cheerleader of US intervention in Kosovo and 
Islamic-Albanian rebellion, described by his friends fifteen years ago as 
being ?short, rotund ? with grey and black hair?, converted so quickly to 
being the spearhead of the Zionist demand to destroy Saudi Arabia and the 
Wahhabi branch of the Muslim faith. But looking into his history ? from his 
days as a reviled member of San Francisco?s far-left anarchist-punk 
community, to his conversion to Jewish conservatism in the mid-1980s while 
working on a CIA-funded report on Grenada, to his sudden reappearance on 
the modern political scene as a spouter of pro-war anti-Muslim hate ? one 
can see that Schwartz has always been perceived as a blowhard making any 
ridiculous statements he thinks will impress his audience, without any real 
convictions or evidence to back them up. As Keith Sorel, a former comrade 
of Schwartz?s, described in Winter 1994 issue of Anarchy! Magazine:

?In the summer of 1984 ? I ? made contact with ?Comrade Sandalio?, also 
known as Steve Schwartz ? Schwartz described himself as an internationally 
recognized surrealist poet. ? Schwartz claimed he?d found the philosopher?s 
stone of the class struggle ? Schwartz claimed that the Russian and German 
revolutions and all the revolts and uprisings since 1917 has been minor 
footnotes to the union-controlled San Francisco General strike of 1934 ... 
I began to detect a pattern of screwy activity. Schwartz had a penchant for 
making grandiloquent statements and later retracting them or refusing to 
back them up. ? In Caffe Trieste in North Beach he repeatedly bragged 
loudly that he was ?one of the world?s leading historians of the Spanish 
Revolution.??

Sorel?s peculiar portrait of Schwartz was substantiated by Schwartz?s own 
behavior towards Pravda. The day before this article was to run, Schwartz 
sent us more than a dozen emails, ranging from threatening to pleading, 
demanding that we not run details of his personal life, and describing the 
martyrdom he would have when we did. Typical of this exchange were 
megalomanic commentaries on his ?victimhood? such as:

?I live a reclusive life and social acceptance is not very important ? I am 
also old and tired. Is this funny for you? ? I don?t understand why these 
things are funny ? [I have] had the absurd tendency to wear my heart on my 
sleeve ? I am not ashamed to pay the price ??

And from that disturbing ? and clearly disturbed ? start, we can delve into 
the history of a man who has re-surfaced on the pages of America?s 
Judaeo-Christian Zionist propaganda sheets to preach internationalist 
hatred of the Arab people. And like Dante, we don?t let his self-pity and 
his wrath keep us from thrusting him back into the mud as we proceed.

full: http://english.pravda.ru/columnists/2002/02/14/26415.html


Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org


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