When the New Left Shilled for North Korea
In an official statement addressed to “Esteemed Mr. Eldridge Cleaver and Madame” and “Esteemed Mr. Robert Scheer,” an unnamed North Korean official — most likely Kim Il-Sung himself — wrote to his “Comrades,” greeting the “Anti-Imperialist Delegation of the American People.” The statement thanked them for their solidarity “in the struggle against U.S. imperialism, the common enemy.” The American system, it continued, was “headed by war-maniac Nixon” and was “running amuck to find a way out of their acute crisis” by waging a war “for aggression and war externally,” and carrying out “plunder and repression of the people internally.”
It ended with a toast “to the health of Eldridge Cleaver and his wife” and “to the health of Mr. Robert Scheer.”
No wonder they received such a toast. Cleaver and Scheer came back filled with enthusiasm, and dedicated to spreading North Korea propaganda back home in the United States. As a lengthy statement says, perhaps written by either of the two:
It will be with the greatest joy that we will tell the American people of the glorious victories of your socialist revolution, of the miraculous economic construction that has built a paradise … In the capitalist United States, technology is highly advanced, but serves only to exploit and murder people … But in [North] Korea we have seen and felt how socialist technology works for the liberation of people.
The statement ends quoting the “brilliant, iron-willed commander, Marshal Kim Il Sung,” who told them that his country was not afraid of war, should the imperialists unleash it against them.
Today, the New York Times reports that Korean officials have said:
Now that the U.S. is set to light a fuse for a nuclear war, the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK will exercise the right to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors and to defend the supreme interests of the country.
With Kim Jong-Un threatening a nuclear attack against the United States if the new UN sanctions against North Korea are put into effect, and with his announcement that his regime will abrogate the 1953 truce with South Korea, the grandson is following in his ancestor’s footsteps.
What new-generation Robert Scheer and Eldridge Cleaver will follow their example and organize a new trip to defend the socialist paradise against American imperialism?
Will Michael Moore rush to North Korea to make a new film telling the truth about their wonderful medical care?
Or will even Dennis Rodman prove he knows how to read, look over Eldridge Cleaver’s diary entries and letters, and realize he is providing the evil regime with a post-modern version of Cleaver’s earlier homage?
What really would be wonderful: if, at Truthdig.com Mr. Scheer would own up to his embarrassing past and apologize publicly for his foolish early years of revolutionary bravado. I look forward to such an article.
As for Scheer's vaunted "influence," WBAI wouldn't air Radosh's own interview with him. I don't think Scheer ever thereafter wrote anything on North Korea. Indeed his subsequent writings steadily questioned the entire cult of idolatry of charismatics that has so often deformed the left project: see... (show more)
As for Scheer's vaunted "influence," WBAI wouldn't air Radosh's own interview with him. I don't think Scheer ever thereafter wrote anything on North Korea. Indeed his subsequent writings steadily questioned the entire cult of idolatry of charismatics that has so often deformed the left project: see Scheer's denunciation of the so-called Rev. Jim Jones and his praise of John Stuart Mill, published in New Times in the issue of Jan. 8, 1979. He titled it "Zombies of the Left," and later reprinted it in his 1988 book, "Thinking Tuna Fish, Talking Death: Essays on the Pornography of Power." It is worth recalling as it amounts almost to a personal credo and a de facto verdict on his own past peregrinations through the maze of left rationalizations and conceits. He wrote, apropos of the People's Temple horror-show, that "People's Temple is just the latest in a series of movements that aim to create zombies in the name of establishing some social utopia. It can never make any sense. It is like fancying the fruit of a diseased tree. The process perverts that which is most healthy about the human spirit--our individual capacity for growth, development, mystery, and passion--and would turn us into uniform mush. If reading Marx and Mao can give rise to that, then it is necessary to temper them by reading John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell, and Martin Luther King, Jr. But perhaps that is too simple. What the crazies have in common is their distortion of ideas, and indeed history, in order to leave themselves at the center of our attention. They have a contempt for ordinary life, for the right and the ability of individuals to make rational decisions. They become humorless, fanatical 'saviors' of our souls. It finally doesn't matter if they claim to be of the left or the right, for Christ or against Him--they are inevitably the destroyers of life." (show less)
I sent the column to Scheer. He did not reply, or see fit to post any comments of his own. I suspect he asked you to be his surrogate, and supplied you with earlier columns. Clearly, he does not want to address the issue of the column- the New Left and North Korea.
I have addressed the issues concerning Israel many times, in earlier columns. The quote you offer--"within borders that permit a viable Palestinian state," means nothing. Read Ben Birnbaum in the new issue of TNR. The Palestinian leadership never accepts Israel's offers, even the generous won made by PM Ohlmert to Abbas a few years ago, as Birnbaum reveals.
I do not... (show more)
I sent the column to Scheer. He did not reply, or see fit to post any comments of his own. I suspect he asked you to be his surrogate, and supplied you with earlier columns. Clearly, he does not want to address the issue of the column- the New Left and North Korea.
I have addressed the issues concerning Israel many times, in earlier columns. The quote you offer--"within borders that permit a viable Palestinian state," means nothing. Read Ben Birnbaum in the new issue of TNR. The Palestinian leadership never accepts Israel's offers, even the generous won made by PM Ohlmert to Abbas a few years ago, as Birnbaum reveals.
I do not support every act or policy made by Israel. That is a canard that won't wash, but one that attempts to clear Scheer, who is no defender of Israel, but one who is to the left of J Street. To accuse Israel of "the drug of militarism" is something that should be addressed instead to the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah.
It is Scheer and you, not me, who are coarse, crude and politically correct. (show less)
Dear Steve,
If you and Scheer cannot recognize that Hamas is a Nazi party whose goal is the extermination of the Jews, and that therefore there is no viable Palestinian actor to negotiate with, then your moral compass is in need of repair. There is no morally acceptable view of Hamas or the Palestinian Jew-haters that is nuanced, anymore than there was of the Hitlerites whom they openly admire.
David
Dear Steve,
If you and Scheer cannot recognize that Hamas is a Nazi party whose goal is the extermination of the Jews, and that therefore there is no viable Palestinian actor to negotiate with, then your moral compass is in need of repair. There is no morally acceptable view of Hamas or the Palestinian Jew-haters that is nuanced, anymore than there was of the Hitlerites whom they openly admire.
David
The charge that Scheer has ignored the depradations of the many depotisms that are to be found in the Middle East, is a canard. To choose one of many examples, he called (in his column of March 23, 2011) Gadhafi "a reprehensible ruler" and a "nutty dictator" whsoe regime was guilty of "considerable crimes"--a ruler who "was exposed by defections from his own armed forces to be akin to rotten fruit destined to drop." Scheer has written in support of the democracy advocates in Bahrain, denounced Yemen's dictator, and had the temerity to point out that it is "the Sunni monarchies that were most closely identified with the problems that gave rise to al-Qaeda." To be sure, Scheer is keen, as any fair-minded observer ought to be, to "expose the deep hypocrisy of [the U.S.] continuing to sell huge amounts of arms and otherwise supporting Saudi Arabia and its contingent tyrannies."
I'm afraid, however, that this is a dialogue of the deaf. Sadly, Radosh is hostage to the conceits and litmus tests of a certain political correctness that is as foolish as it is coarse. (show less)
Stop kidding us. You combed through all Scheer wrote and all you can come up with is an attack on the Saudis, undoubtedly written because Bush was President and Scheer wanted to show him up for the kind of allies he courted.
The only problem is that every US administration, including the Obama one, guards our relations with Saudi Arabia and does not challenge them when such challenges are desperately needed.
What Scheer says is correct. So where are his comments on Assad and Syria, his attacks on Al Qaeda and Khadaffi, his condemnation of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the control of Lebanon, etc. etc. etc.? Where is his defense of Israel against its many enemies?
Most important, where is his attack on the Islamists, or as Hitch used to call them, the Islamo-fascists? Did he ever support Christopher in... (show more)
Stop kidding us. You combed through all Scheer wrote and all you can come up with is an attack on the Saudis, undoubtedly written because Bush was President and Scheer wanted to show him up for the kind of allies he courted.
The only problem is that every US administration, including the Obama one, guards our relations with Saudi Arabia and does not challenge them when such challenges are desperately needed.
What Scheer says is correct. So where are his comments on Assad and Syria, his attacks on Al Qaeda and Khadaffi, his condemnation of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the control of Lebanon, etc. etc. etc.? Where is his defense of Israel against its many enemies?
Most important, where is his attack on the Islamists, or as Hitch used to call them, the Islamo-fascists? Did he ever support Christopher in his many brave attacks on fundamentalist radical Islam? I'm waiting to hear.
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A snipit of my post is:
"... The first fellow I challenged was one who struck me as being a Marxist, I don’t recall why but it struck me that way. As he struggled with formulating a response to my second question, I tried to help him along by suggesting that what he was describing might look a lot like North Korea. He jumped on that in a very enthusiastic way and started describing the perfect society of North Korea where there is universal freedom, education, jobs for everyone and everyone is taken care of. ..."
You can read the rest of my "trip report" at <a href="http://ayearningforpublius.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/occupying-wall-street/" rel="nofollow"... (show more)
A snipit of my post is:
"... The first fellow I challenged was one who struck me as being a Marxist, I don’t recall why but it struck me that way. As he struggled with formulating a response to my second question, I tried to help him along by suggesting that what he was describing might look a lot like North Korea. He jumped on that in a very enthusiastic way and started describing the perfect society of North Korea where there is universal freedom, education, jobs for everyone and everyone is taken care of. ..."
You can read the rest of my "trip report" at <a href="http://ayearningforpublius.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/occupying-wall-street/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://ayearningforpublius.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/occupying-wall-street/</a>
(show less)
Start looking at what techniques and methods of control and administration work or don't work well for society, and which groups seem to want to dominate others, stuff like that.
If you manage this transition REALLY well, you might even live long enough to move from there onward to diagnose what is wrong with the psychology within these groups, to make them like that.
Start looking at what techniques and methods of control and administration work or don't work well for society, and which groups seem to want to dominate others, stuff like that.
If you manage this transition REALLY well, you might even live long enough to move from there onward to diagnose what is wrong with the psychology within these groups, to make them like that.
As I've said before, it was an open secret on the Left that the Rosenbergs did what they were accused of. (How else would Cleaver come to believe that, as he clearly did?) That makes the posturing of old Reds like Irwin Corey even more ludicrous.
As I've said before, it was an open secret on the Left that the Rosenbergs did what they were accused of. (How else would Cleaver come to believe that, as he clearly did?) That makes the posturing of old Reds like Irwin Corey even more ludicrous.