Alexander Cockburn: Reaching Out to the Right
It is old news that Alexander Cockburn of Counterpunch is intentionally reaching out to the Right. But below are some examples.
Alexander Cockburn, of Counterpunch web journal, has repeatedly expressed interest in working with the Right. Speaking at a conference of the Right-Libertarian group Antiwar.com, alongside Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul, Cockburn claimed that the left and right have a “shared moral outlook.” In his talk at the 2000 conference “Beyond Left & Right: The New Face of the Antiwar Movement,” Cockburn argued for a coalition of the Left and Right in opposition to war, and on other issues. He wrote: “What I’m sure is attractive about the idea of the left-right opposition to war is the idea of a shared moral outlook, which of course then has to confront or perhaps gloss over temporarily economic and political differences. And I think the shared moral outlook should extend beyond war into other very, important areas.” Cockburn’s belief about a “shared moral outlook” between Left and Right was based on a quote from Noam Chomsky, where he claimed a “shared moral outlook” between Slave-holders and abolitionists. Chomsky argues that there was a common moral outlook between the abolitionists and Slave-holders when the latter group argued that they treat people better when they own them than when they rent them. For Cockburn´s text at the conference, see here or here.
Putting ideas into praxis, Cockburn has published multiple texts by the known Holocaust denier who writes under the psuedonym “Israel Shamir.” Shamir has been repeatedly exposed as a Holocaust denier, saying “I think it is the duty of every Muslim and Christian to deny the Holocaust, to reject this belief, just like Abraham and Moses rejected idolatry. Every person who profess their faith to God should deny the Holocaust. I think it’s much more serious that people deny God, isn’t it?” And in 2002, Shamir encouraged Palestinian human rights activists to work together with the neo-Nazi organization, the National Alliance. [Here is Shamir's statement: "Rock of Dissent," http://shamir.mediamonitors.net/august172002.html and here is the response from the Northeastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists.]
And most recently Counterpunch has published an article by right-wing activist Alison Weir defending the age-old anti-Jewish blood libel and propagating it in modern terms with an accusation that the Israeli Defense Forces steal the organs from Palestinians and sell them on the black market through a network of New York Rabbis. Adam Holland reports on Weir’s article here and here.
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 11:42 am and is filed under left-right overlap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
on November 22, 2009 Rebecca wrote:
A shared "immoral" attitude he should have said.
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on November 22, 2009 schalomlibertad wrote:
if by your statement you mean to say that "the left and right share an immoral attitude," you´re statement would be just as ridiculous as Cockburn´s.
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on November 26, 2009 Rebecca wrote:
No, I wouldn't make such an overarching statement. I meant that making common cause with people like Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul is entering into the immoral attitudes that these two men hold (at least about some topics, such as Israel).
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