I confess to a certain morbid fascination with James Petras. Sure, he’s an anti-semitic moonbat—but he’s a uniquely creative anti-semitic moonbat. I mean, a guy who implicates Jewish dentists in a Zionist plot against the United States deserves some sort of special recognition.
In the aftermath of the Dubai assassination, Petras issues this dire warning at The People’s Voice [sorry, I won’t link to that vile site]:
The Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (PMAJO) can pursue its defense of Mossad’s acts of international terrorism with impunity in the U.S. because of its power over the U.S. Congress, the Obama White House and the American mass media. This ensures that only its version of events, its definition of legality and its lies will be heard by legislators, echoed by Zionist activists and embellished by its solemn defenders in academic and journalistic circles.
It is time to speak out against their impunity, before another Israeli secret police murder takes place, possibly inside the USA itself and with the shameless complicity of Zionist accomplices….Will a time come when American Zionists, who are unconditional public defenders of Mossad killings, cross the line between propaganda for the deed to become accomplices of the deed? The robust American Zionist defense of Mossad’s overseas assassinations does not augur well for the security of Americans in the face of Israel’s willing U.S. accomplices.
Actually, I consider this a relatively “moderate” commentary from Petras, since he doesn’t suggest that Mossad agents have already conducted assassinations in the United States. (Of course, if he finds evidence that unusually large numbers of dentists were congregating in Dallas on November 22, 1963, that assessment might change.)
And, a brief note on Noam Chomsky, who was at Boston University delivering his standard Israel-is-an-evil-rogue-state speech. According to the student newspaper,BU Today: “Chomsky added that he doubts that Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, is the culprit in the recent assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud-al-Mabhouh in Dubai. ‘It was carried out so unprofessionally, I could’ve carried it out,’ he said to laughter.”
Whoa, that’s not going to go over well with the “Chomsky is a closet Zionist” crowd! Expect an avalanche of outraged blog posts, articles and “open letters” in the days ahead, chastising the professor for “exonerating” the Mossad.
It strikes me that such is the paranoid mindset of many “Anti-Zionists” like Petras that they probably fear being knocked off by a Mossad hit squad?
Still, he probably cancelled his holiday to Dubai anyway!
Maybe we should start making t-shirts with “ZPC” on them. (Standing in Petras’ mind for “Zionist Power Configuration”). Although people might mistake them for ZPG….
As a former student of James Petras, I have become all too familiar with his vitriolic attacks on Jews – under whatever euphemism he chooses to employ at the time. Rather than recite a litany of code words and outright slurs, I would note that Petras remains a key figure in the propagation of a particularly insidious cosmology which transcends traditional religious, political and ideological boundaries.
Petras’ area of academic expertise lies in Latin American affairs, with a particular emphasis on the political economy of rural development within the region (those who remain somewhat familiar with the subject might recall “Dependency Theory” as a sort of Neo-Marxist analytical framework), as well a focus upon social movements of the Left.
While Petras is very much a creature of the Left, his rhetoric could just as easily be representative of a much more evolved Right wing theoretician or historically anti-Semitic pamphleteer from 1930′s Germany. He offers his readers a Neo-Protocols-like web of paranoia, historical revisionism
and frequent cadaverous belches of anti-Semitic hyperbole.
Since his liberation from SUNY Binghamton several years ago (as a Professor emeritus no less) Petras has rolled up his sleeves and gone full-tilt against the nefarious minions of bogeymen which swirl throughout the darkest corners of his consciousness. “Zionists, Ziocons, Neocons, Ultra Zionists, etc. etc.”, Petras tosses out self-invented terms and labels – frequently omitting hyphens, capital letters and using said terms as interchangeable parts of speech – and engages in breathless tirades which would have made Hitler’s ideologue-in-chief, Alfred Rosenberg, blush at his verbal inadequacy.
Petras is a key ideological player in the construction of not only modern day anti-Zionism, but of anti-Semitism as well. He expresses no reservations when articulating his thoughts on what he perceives to be Jewish control and influence over every imaginable sphere of human activity across the planet. Indeed, not only does Petras revise and re-invigorate the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other historical documents and systems of thought consistent with the fomentation of
anti-Semitism (and its uber-violent outcome), but he has cross-pollinated the ideological spectrum and found a receptive audience in both Latin American circles (Chavez, Morales, Lula et al) and amongst radical Islamists and their cohorts on the radical Left (Greens, militant Socialists and worker’s parties, ant-Globalization radicals, pro-Palestinian cadres and other ultra-ethnocentric actors).
During a recent viewing of an episode of the PBS series “Frontline”, I noticed James Petras sitting in the front row of a rambling lecture being delivered by Hugo Chavez somewhere under a military tent in Venezuela. When I was a student of his at Binghamton in the early 1990′s, he was fairly open about his political activities in Latin America, and was already highly regarded as a true Crusader of the anti-Imperialist Left. However, his “views on Jews”, so to speak, certainly remained unknown to me at the time. Granted SUNY “B”, as we liked to the university, had a largely Jewish student population and Petras most likely kept things under wraps until achieving freedom to froth at the mouth once he shuffled out of the Sociology department upon his retirement.
In any case, I am not here to simply pound the old man for the fun of it. As I mentioned, Petras is a key player in the Natzification of Israel and a prime mover in the utter and complete transnational demonization of the Jewish people. He is to be taken seriously as a thinker and his rhetoric, and the rhetoric of other virulent anti-Semites, should be followed closely. James Petras continues to be a prolific writer and as a professor emeritus, enjoys a much greater degree of legitimacy and respectability than others attempting to convey the same message, albeit in much more uncultivated wording. His writings are dense yet remain eminently readable and present good fodder for analysis and discussion (collaborative preferably – among like-minded individuals).
I hope that by posting this comment, I might inspire one, two or three others to begin writing along parallel lines and eventually, establish a more formal level of contact between us. Perhaps we might collaborate on the construction of a website, a Petras-specific blog (i.e. “The Anti-Petras Reader”) or some such undertaking in order to shed light into the mind of a man suffering from the advanced stages of one of the most persistent and deadly psychopathologies known to man.
This is the first time I have ever posted a blog entry and would greatly appreciate comments, criticisms (constructive only please. No name calling) and suggestions on how to leverage my ability to participate in this forum. Other blogs discussing “academic anti-Semitism”?
Thanks.
Hi Greg,
I know you wrote this months ago, but I only noticed it today. I’ve only recently become award of James Petras and his vile synthesis of various strains of Jew hatred. Your idea of collaborating in an anti-Petras intrigues me. Let’s talk about it.
I posted this yesterday at another thread on this page, I know there are some typos and it’s not the greatest thing I ever written. It was late and the end of a very long day. Here it is and please write if you’re interested.
Regards,
David in Chicago
It’s astonishing to see an ‘intellectual’ like James Petras regurgitate a combination of old school Protocols style Jew hatred wrapped in a faux-humanitarian leftism with a little insincere Jews-as-dual-loyalists American nationalism thrown simply to keep things well rounded.
Petras can and is correctly dismissed as a lunatic by most-and he is. However, what scares me about this clearly off the rails prof is not the prof himself. It’s what his fusion of various forms of Judenhass may portend in a world plagued by a massive economic crisis and the failure of third world states (many with Muslim majorities) to meaningful develop either economically or politically in the post-colonial era.
It’s manifestly true anyone not bogged down by multicultie touchifeeliness that the Arab and larger Islamic worlds are, for the most part, anti-democratic, misogynistic, fundamentally religious, homophobic, jingoistic, uber-macho, intolerant shitholes that are even more backwards than they were 60 years ago. To a majority in these third world sewers, err sorry countries, it’s all fault of Israel, the Jews and the Zionists. Of all the above -isms Jew hatred rules the day.
So how do the unpleasant facts about the cultural, economic, and political retardation of the third world (it’s Islamic portion in particular) pertain the Petras’s current nauseating cocktail of Marxist anti-imperialism and Islamic paranoid anti-semitic fantasy? Because his theory is a fusion of the two. It’s the offspring of the Jew as explanation for state failure in the Islamic world and the Zionist as emblem for imperialism/colonialism in the angry permanently adolescent world of the now failed 1960s and 1970s third-wordism of geriatric Marxists the Petras ilk. Add terror in the developed world surrounding the current crisis and you have the ideas of James Petras.
This is getting long, so I’ll wrap it up. Petras scares me because the diverse ideas he has fused may have wide appeal in a world as troubled as our own. One lead only to see the rise of lunatic left and right populism in the US and the rise of nationalism and religiosity to understand that when the chips are down, people may embrace nonsense a la that delivered by James Petras and especially when it contains cultural strains familiar to various societies. A Petras like theort delivered by a pitchman or group without the social retardation and radical political baggage of James Petras could be very dangerous indeed.
contact me. in windy city
G