March 28, 2002

Nuts When it comes to

Nuts

When it comes to left-wing conspiracy theorist nut cases (agents provocateurs?) I've always found Alexander Cockburn to be a bit more palatable than, say, Oliver Stone. I suppose that's partly because the English get automatic easy extra credit points for the eccentricity which is such a crucial part of the rich tapestry of their island story. The raving old coot, banging his cane on the arms of his leather-bound chair, spouting barely intelligible harrumphs and complaints about this or that in between sips of port and fits of coughing up bits of phlegm has a kind of charm that cannot be matched by the American maniac brushing imaginary insects from his forearms while muttering obscenities about Jews and space aliens.

Despite this perverse cultural bias, however, there's precious little charm to be found in Cockburn's most recent babbling about the Jew-dominated media and other various and sundry Jewish conspiracies. (This via Gary Farber's great Amygdala blog, by the way.)

Cockburn writes:

It's supposedly the third rail in journalism even to have a discussion of how much the Jews do control the media. Since three of the prime founders of Hollywood, were Polish Jews who grew up within fifty miles of each other in Galicia, it's reckoned as not so utterly beyond the bounds of propriety to talk about Jewish power in Hollywood, though people still stir uneasily. The economic and political commentator Jude Wanniski remarked last week in his web newsletter that even if the Jews don't control the media overall, it is certainly true to say that they control discussion of Israel in the media here.

Certainly, there are a number of stories sloshing around the news now that have raised discussion of Israel and of the posture of American Jews to an acrid level. The purveyor of anthrax may have been a former government scientist, Jewish, with a record of baiting a colleague of Arab origins, and with the intent to blame the anthrax on Muslim terrorists. Rocketing around the web and spilling into the press are many stories about Israeli spies in America at the time of 9/11. On various accounts, they were trailing Atta and his associates, knew what was going to happen but did nothing about it, or were simply spying on US facilities. Some, posing as art students have been expelled, according to AP. Finally, there's Sharon's bloody repression of the Palestinians, and Israel's apparently powerful role in Bush's foreign policy, urging him into action against at least two of the axes of evil, Iraq and Iran.


Matt Welch comments: "Unless about 12 conspiracies line up perfectly for the old Marxist lecher, this will go down in history as one of his most irresponsible and hateful pieces of writing yet. I'm speechless." So am I.

Or very nearly. This piece is characteristically unclear as to the point Cockburn is trying to make. As Gary Farber points out, the article ends abruptly with the paragraph quoted above, "as if he were killed in the act of typing, or the copy was sent accidentally incomplete." The article is ostensibly about unsavory anti-Semitic statements in the recently-publicized conversations between Nixon and Billy Graham. Does Cockburn approve or disapprove of the "stories sloshing around the news" about Jews poisoning the wells and so forth? He doesn't quite say. It's almost as though he tacked on these paragraphs with the express purpose of getting these unsourced conspiracy theories into google-able form. But to what end? Well, you see, harrumph, cough, snort, damn yer eyes, harrumph, *wheeze*-- waiter! more port!

Posted by Dr. Frank at March 28, 2002 12:38 PM | TrackBack