[Marxism] Hank Roth

[Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Way back before I heard of Marxmail I contributed to Hank Roth?s PNews.
Back then, it was mostly socialists and radicals, and some single-issue
types.. It was sometimes rancorous because, as you may have discovered,
some ?progressives? hate Marx, Marxism, Marxists, Communism/t--they
don?t even like hearing or reading the words.   Makes them froth.
Oddly, many seem to agree with a lot of the content, however.
Throughout, Hank did his best to keep the exchanges within the limits of
argument, however heated.  He tried to keep an objective overview, as
well.  When it appeared that a group of contributors were ganging up on
me, so that I felt surrounded like Jackie Chan, parrying and thrusting
in every direction, Hank would send me personal emails encouraging me to
fight the good fight.

At certain points I have to shut down my email correspondence so as to
devote a focused effort on a particular project, to travel, whatever.  I
lost contact with PNews and Hank Roth.  Then I hooked up with Marxmail
and that maxxed my exchange quotas (I do other things, too, in my
life).  Then late last year Hank emailed me. He had been reading
Marxmail and recognised my name.  He still liked my stuff, and asked if
I would consider sending in to his list now and then. I looked over his
site first to check it out.  I must admit that I was shocked.  Hank?s
site foregrounded writings that attacked Norman Finkelstein for being a
?self-hating Jew? and a flake and a dissembler, and all the crap that
Norm catches from the champions of hyper-Zionism.  I hope Hank wouldn?t
mind that I share this with you (and I hope that he recovers and sees
this gesture of mine more as an attempted mitzvah).  So this is what I
wrote to him:

HI, Hank!

I almost deleted your message unread because it arrived with no address
in the senders? column in my email inbox.  I thought it was spam.
Anyways, I was intrigued with your comments? about revisionism so I
followed your advice and looked into the sites provided by the links you
sent me.  I was concerned with a passage you wrote:

?Norman Finkelstein is quoted on both the left and the right but he is
not considered credible in many academic circles.  The last time I
checked he could write books which are popular with the
hate-everything-Jewish circle but unable to even get tenure at a
university.?

This is an awful slur, Hank.

If it?s any consolation, the reason Norman Finkelstein has not received
tenure has more to do with his anti-Zionism than his academic
credits?which are as fine as many other tenured professors in his
field.  His teaching record is generally perceived by students and
fellow faculty to be in the fine-to-excellent range.  He is just too hot
to handle for any US university?because of his politics, not because of
his scholarship.  If you know anything about the history of politics in
the American academy, you will recognize the dynamic of exclusion of
individuals who do not go along with the status quo.  By that I mean
conformity in substantial matters, not manner or style.  Here?s the nub:
Norman is against private property and imperialism.  (So am I.)  I
believe Norm has a personal interest in the so-called Jewish state.  You
should know about that.

I know Norman from my Brooklyn College days when we were in the BCPC
against the first Gulf War.  He does not ?hate-everything-Jewish.?  He
loves his culture.  But he loves humanity as well.  He?s not a
?self-hating Jew.?

People say the same things about Noam Chomsky.  Actually, I think Norm
and Noam have more chutzpah than Al Dershowitz, while still maintaining
superior decorum.

Norman?s not anti-Semitic, either.  To the contrary, he does have a
broader range of inclusion in his recognition of Semitic peoples.  When
I hear critics denounce Norman because he aids the cause of anti-Semitic
reactionaries, at first I am appalled, then must smile, perhaps
ruefully, at such absurdity.  Such critiques are rife with a ?Fallacy of
Association? that attempts to conflate left with right.  Try to make
black look white, cold hot, oil hydrophilic.  You should know that
Norman is not a right-winger.  To the contrary!  Whose side are we on?
Right-wingers have controlled the Zionist state for decades now.
Einstein warned us about these people fifty years ago.  Such deviation
from definition demonstrates the ?Fallacy of Causation?.  In Latin, this
fallacy is called post hoc, ergo propter hoc, which literally means
?after this, therefore because of this.?  This fallacy is committed when
a person believes that just because one thing followed another there
must be a causal connection.  The right has entirely different motives
and goals, however much they purloin their petards from more resourceful
minds.

Norman?s goal is peace and sharing.  The history and current practice of
Zionism seems at odds with such principles.  Please reconsider your
vilification of a man beset from all sides because of his ideals.  To do
so you might have to examine your own partiality.  The reason I have
taken time to answer you is because I think there is a lot that you have
done that is good, and that you have the capacity to question all
things.

For the best for all,
Chris Brady


Hank wrote back:

?I will be taking another look at that, as I have done with some of the
other things I have written. One is never too old to learn and I have
learned a great deal lately.  What it took to reexamine my positions was
some debate I have had with Jared Israel, who has gone from left to
neocon -- .. I have always valued truth higher than ideology so I have
been left about MOST things but my support for Israel has been based on
myths which I believed because I wanted to -- also reactionary, because
of a sense of antisemitism* and the way that Jews have been alienated in
practically every place.  But I could never excuse an injustice?
      ?I took a knee jerk response to Finklestein and it may turn out
that he is more courageous than I ever thought to give him credit for in
my attempt to discredit him.  There is probably a lot on my site that
you would disagree with.  Don't let that dissuade you from writing?
      ?I do accept what you say about Finkelstein ? One thing I am not,
and that is to the RIGHT, even if I occasionally fail to get it right (I
mean LEFT).

?Thanks for the info.
Your friend,
Hank Roth

[P.S.:]  I have also made some modifications to my sites today and need
to rewrite a lot of it.
Check it now -> http://pnews.org/AAA/phpnuke/   ?

I did check.  This was around the end of November last.  He had indeed
wiped out that entire section.

I have to give Hank a lot of credit.  How often have you argued with
someone and felt that your discussion had morphed into a pissing contest
instead of a collaborative effort to get to the bottom of the issue?
Scholastic academics have built reputations that they sell in the
market, so if you dispute a position held by one of these intellectual
mercenaries, you are not really addressing an idea but attacking an
individual.  It is sad, pathetic, counter-productive, and yet another
reason to switch out of capitalism to a saner system.  I know Hank would
agree.

Hank?s problem was one all activists share: they don?t just sit there.
But what if we?re wrong?  De omnibus dubitandem.  Do we stubbournly
persist, like that stupid Emperor with no clothes guy?  Actually, that
is more characteristic of the defenders of capitalism.

I hope the guy gets well soon.


* N.B.: This squeezed construction of ?anti-Semitism? has been coined by
Zionists to expropriate the term and turn it into a trope that conflates
and thereby vilifies anti-Zionism with being anti-Jewish.  Being of
Jewish or German heritage need have nothing to do with the inhuman
exploits of belligerent nationalisms such as Zionism or Nazism.  Just as
anti-Nazism does not equal anti-Germanism, anti-Zionism does not equal
anti-Semitism ?unless, of course, one must rely upon the definition of
?antisemitism? provided by the Webster?s Third New International
Dictionary ...  Go look it up and see what I mean.  It?s another facet
of mind-control over the masses: change the definition of words.  See
also George Orwell?s ?Department of Truth? in 1984, or the current US
?Department of Defense? which had a much more appropriate name before
WWII:  The War Department.



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