by Bob Smith

The Thirty Years' Wars: Dispatches and Diversions of a Radical Journalist 1965-1994, by Andrew Kopkind. Verso. 514pp.

For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports, by Christopher Hitchens. Verso, 1994. 339 pp.

The Golden Age is in Us: Journeys and Encounters 1987-1994, by Alexander Cockburn. Verso. 426 pp.

I won a few bucks betting on the O.J. Simpson verdict and immediately spent some of the take renewing my subscription to the American liberal weekly magazine, The Nation. It seemed fitting for it was in the pages of The Nation that I first read these three journalists, and it was through their writings and two other regular contributors (Patricia Williams and Adolf Reed) that I gained an insight into the gruesome state of race relations in the United States.

The way I had it figured, it was like Orwell said of Salvador Dali: "One ought to be able to hold in one's head simultaneously the two facts that Dali is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being." The jury was able to hold in their heads the two facts that O.J. was guilty, and the racism of Mark Furhman and people like him had been tolerated in their police force and their society for hundreds of years. They merely decided what was the greater crime.

They also probably wanted to go home to their segregated neighbourhoods and not be picketed, harassed, assaulted, or killed.

It is not just for gambling tips and insight into American society, however, that I regularly read The Nation. Hitchens and Cockburn are columnists for the magazine and reading them weekly is a pleasure, a purgative ritual that is a welcome relief from the shrivelled prose and obfuscation found almost anywhere else, including the other pages of The Nation. Both write in the language of the political brawl. Hitchens, writing in his biweekly Minority Reports column, calls Henry Kissinger a mass murderer who identifies with "sub-Darwinian depravity;" in his alternate weekly media column Beat the Devil, Cockburn has fumed at President Bill Clinton's hypocrisy and once described "our President McMuffin" looking up in the Bible to discover that blowjobs did not constitute adultery.

These are the second collections for both columnists. Hitchens's Prepared for the Worst came out ten years ago, and Cockburn's Corruptions of Empire collected the Irish writer's journalism from his arrival in the US in 1972 to the end of the Reagan era.

Both columnists are fun to read and bring to their columns considerable historical knowledge of events, political precedents, and commitment. Their method of journalistic investigation is founded in a profound cynicism and a will toward authenticity that regularly rewards the reader with a perspective on current political affairs that eclipses the mass of uninspired punditry regularly churned out by a captive North American Fifth Estate.

All three authors would probably describe themselves as Marxists, but Hitchens and Cockburn's politics are not identical, and they occasionally rail against each other in alternate columns, lately on the subject of Bosnia (Hitchens is for lifting the arms embargo, Cockburn sees this as idiocy). Cockburn is also more engaged in the various left-wing causes in the United States than is Hitchens who spends much of his journalistic energies writing lengthy, erudite, and name- dropping reviews for the London Review of Books, and he was Washington editor of Harper's the last time I looked. Cockburn makes his living writing everyday for one low-paying journal or other and flies around the country making minute speaker's fees at various community or environmental fundraisers.

I once found myself in Seattle six years ago on a day the telephone poles around the university were advertising Alexander Cockburn and a speech on something like the recent developments in the Middle-East. I decided to stay over and had the opportunity of attending the extraordinary event. The entrance to the hall that evening was crowded with every political groupescule I had ever heard of selling their newsletters, and the hall itself filled to overflowing with more than a thousand people. I can't remember the actual subject of Cockburn's talk, because a two hour question period covered everything from the rain forests in the Amazon to the need for a labour party. From the groupsescules came attacks on the minutiae of Cockburn's political perspectives as though he were a competing Leninist party of one. But there were also tens of respectful, almost pleading requests of Cockburn to lay out a program of action for everything from the urban renewal of Seattle's ghetto to the organizing of course unions within the university. Cockburn was combative and respectful as the need arose in this scene that was at once inspiring and pathetic. It was inspiring in that Cockburn showed a great understanding of most of the issues presented, and pathetic in that it showed a hopelessly fragmented American left that was looking at Cockburn as some sort of lefty messiah come to sort it all out.

A reading of Andrew Kopkind's The Thirty Years' Wars would have prepared me for that scene. Like Cockburn, Kopkind was a participant observer (he died of cancer in October 1994). He covered the civil rights marches of the 1960s for The New Republic (when it was a progressive journal); he was engaged in the antiwar movement when he wrote for Ramparts, The New York Review of Books (when it, too, allowed a progressive view within its pages), and the New Statesman; he was in Prague in 1968; he participated in the development of Students for Democratic Society through to their obliteration as the Weatherman Underground; after the disintegration of the American left that followed the victory of the Vietnamese, he licked his wounds on a New England commune and did "a lot of acid," attended John Lennon's funeral, chased down former leaders of the movement in ashrams, boardrooms and liberal hideaways, and wrote about it all; the Stonewall riot of 1969 encouraged his coming out and his subsequent involvement in the Gay Liberation movement; he was in Russia in January 1993.

Reading The Thirty Years' Wars does more than give insight to the present state of the left in the United States. The book is "the history of an era, the evolution of a sensibility at once personal, generational and [inter]national," as Cockburn says in the introduction.

The Kopkind collection is not an exercise in nostalgia for some disenchanted leftist. His journalism, though committed, is never sentimental and always compassionate. To read of Kopkind's thirty-year journey is to read of cautious hope, critical concerns, deep resentment, personal loss, and a profound melancholy at what might have been. His melancholy is not a loss of hope. It is not sadness. At no time was he the euphoric hippie expecting the revolution tomorrow, but he knew of the need for radical change, and he carefully chronicles the mistakes of the left and the barbarism of the governments and their police that resulted in the ultimate defeat of those attempts at radical transformation of a corrupt society. Liberals, in particular, have much to answer for. For instance, the liberals who engineered a compromise that allowed for the refusal to seat the Mississippi Freedom Democrats at the 1964 Democratic convention are asked by Kopkind to view the profound consequences: the emergence of black power, the fragmentation of the multiracial left, the rise of Louis Farrakhan. Encouraged by their newly found peace and prosperity, these contrite neo-liberals find solace in the post-modern where all views command legitimacy. Their po-mo celebrates insecurity and inspires timidity: instead of general strikes to defeat NAFTA, we have union-financed roadshows bleating to audiences of bureaucrats; instead of Stonewall, we have tenured Queerologists in anemic cloisters fussing about Foucault; instead of visions of full-employment we have campaigns to raise juvenile offenders into adult court; instead of class solidarity. We have every

This unforgettable and very important book proves several things. First, that the CIA has been the world's biggest drug trafficker for the past 50 years. Second, that the major newspapers and TV networks have always known about it, but have chosen not to report it, under the aegis of national security. Third, that the end result of CIA drug dealing and the attendant media "whiteout" is the pacification of minority communities in America. And last but not least, Whiteout proves that when independent journalists like Gary Webb report the truth, they are inevitably smeared by the same powerful forces that put this unjust system into motion.

Whiteout is a volatile book and is sure to arouse the wrath of both Big Media and Big Brother. But it has been meticuously researched, and it is so well written that the case it makes is beyond any reasonable doubt. Authors Cockburn and St Clair are to be commended for their courage in providing such a valuable public service. Five stars for covering all the bases.

The first interview is nominally devoted to Chomsky's academic specialism, linguistics, but the reader should prepare for disappointment. In reality it comprises only Chomsky's traditional complaints against America and Israel - and that forms the substance of the whole book. But if the complaints are traditional, the manner of their exposition becomes increasingly and unimpressively strident. Chomsky declares that, mirabile dictu, "There is such a thing as international terrorism." And who is a principal progenitor of terrorism? Why, "the United States is one of the main sponsors of it", of course. Chomsky neither defines his terms nor gives any evidence for this judgement save for complaining at US efforts in the 1960s - early in the 1960s, for the missile crisis initiated by Khrushchev secured the tacit renunciation of such efforts - to overthrow Castro's dictatorship in Cuba. Now, there are strictly pragmatic arguments for allowing Castro to oppress and impoverish Cuba's people without external hindrance, but it is difficult to see any ethical reason to do so, for in no sense could the people under such a system be said to be exercising self-determination. Moreover, given that Castro was a strong advocate during the Cuban Missile Crisis of launching a nuclear first strike against the US (on 26 October 1962 he sent a cable to Khrushchev urging such an "act of legitimate defence, however harsh and terrible the solution would be"), there genuinely was a clear case for US preventive war against his regime. Yet Chomsky, with apparent indifference to these geo-political realities, damns US actions as 'terrorism'. As often happens, the reader who lacks a historical background might be susceptible to this sort of rhetoric, but it does not withstand critical scrutiny and is far from the levels of scholarship that ought to be axiomatic for someone in Chomsky's position.

The quality of analysis does not improve as the book goes on. Chomsky's insistent theme, as I say, is the supposed iniquities of Israel; he advances this notion with scant substantiation but a great deal of abuse. He condemns the Anti-Defamation League and Alan Dershowitz in terms that indicate a revealing defensiveness on his part (apparently they "defame and intimidate and silence people who criticise current Israeli policies" - an absurd charge given the well-known eagerness of Dershowitz to engage Israel's vituperative opponents in debate), but he goes far beyond the bounds of reasonable polemic when he describes the prosecutor of Adolf Eichmann, Gideon Hausner, as "us[ing] this terminology which is in fact rather reminiscent of Eichmann himself" (Hauser had apparently referred to the PLO, reasonably enough given its record of terrorism, as a cancer). He believes US support for Israel is founded on considerations purely of realpolitik, portraying Israel as a "strategic asset" for the US. Indeed, Israel is a strategic asset for the US, being the only state in the region to hold free elections and to have an independent judiciary, but there is more to it than that. Chomsky maintains all states have a common character - "they are instruments of power and violence, that's true of all states" - and thereby manages to miss the huge, qualitative difference between a liberal democracy like the US (or Great Britain, or Israel) and a totalitarian state like Iraq or Cuba. Certainly democratic states need to exercise force in their defence against terrorism, as Israel has had to do for decades, but that force is limited and accountable, rather than indiscriminate and aimed at civilians. These are rather basic questions of political sociology and history, and they receive literally no acknowledgement in this book.

One surprising aspect of the book is that it refers to - if only to brush off - certain aspects of Chomsky's career that more than anything have damaged him in the eyes of former sympathisers. Barsamian refers to "your apologia for Nazi and Khmer Rouge genocide". Having thus been presented with a convenient straw man to knock down, Chomsky waxes indignant about these charges. The problem is that no one has ever made them. The particular comments of Chomsky that earned him notoriety were an indulgent description of the views of a Holocaust denier, Robert Faurisson, not (as Chomsky claims here) a defence of free speech, and attempts to discredit the accounts by Cambodian refugees of Khmer Rouge genocide - which accounts were in fact horribly accurate.

There is much else in this book, but it rarely rises above the level of calling other people names. Many of those Chomsky disapproves of are designated 'racist'. Abba Eban, former Foreign Minister of Israel, is apparently a racist for making the unexceptionable and irrefutable judgement that the Palestinian leadership, which has three times rejected the offer of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, has 'never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity'. The New Republic, a bastion of American liberalism, is of course 'outright racist' - apparently because it disagrees with Chomsky's denigration of Israel. A Christian religious broadcast is 'typical of a racist culture'. To begin with, the effect of this sort of stuff is comic, but after a while merely becomes banal. Like the book itself.

I bought it for myself as a Christmas gift. I read it in a few days. I was so fascinated that someone could have such insight, such a good memory for history, economics, such a way of looking at events and facts from different angles than are normally presented. Much of what he said summed up (much more articulately of course) what had been going through my head over the past few formative years. Why doesn't everyone know about and read this guy I wondered. You find out pretty quickly after discovering Chomsky that he certainly has his share of detractors (read some of the reviews of recent works ie 9/11 for example!) So I occasionally read his detractors as well, and I must say they are seldom as convincing as he is, and he stands on a much higher moral ground than most (all?) of them, a voice of sanity in a wilderness of deception, propaganda and ideology. They seem to mostly repeat US government propaganda and try to call Chomsky an apologist for genocide, which is one of the biggest jokes I can imagine. Chomsky is merciless in his defense of real freedom, and in his denunciation of tyranny. A common thread in all he says and writes is that we (the west) must judge ourselves with the same (even higher he argues) standards as we judge our enemies, but that in no instance is this ever done by the intelligentsia community, becoming basically apologists for state atrocities and violence. This seems so obvious to me, yet there are several lunatics out there who criticise (even lambaste) him for suggesting that our crimes are anywhere near as significant as "theirs" (whoever the "them" of the month happens to be) He can write a meticulously well documented book on the effects of American intervention in Vietnam (ie many many corpses), and the some wacko criticises him for not talking about all of communist atrocities in the world even though that is not the topic of his book! His point is that communist atrocities are very well documented (occasionally fabricated even!) as they are the official enemy. He chooses to focus his attention on atrocties carried out by his own government, something he feels his words and actions may be able to influence.

Noam Chomsky is feared as he exposes the truth, and something I have learned since nearly 10 years ago when I first read this book (a good reference to have on hand to this day I might add), is that people are terrified of the truth. They would rather believe government propaganda and that governments are looking out for their best interests rather than the truths which Chomsky exposes in great detail in the piles of political books he has written. This series of interviews provides a good intro, and is easier to read than his heavily footnoted books, which can be admittedly difficult to slog through (though definitely worth it as well) and brings up points that are found in more detail in his books for the more interested, or people skeptical of his interviews (something he encourages by the way). Highly recommended to anyone who is a skeptic.

A nationally syndicated columnist, Cockburn has published a diary that is part commentary on political and social events, part a record of his personal life between August 1987 and November 1994. Many of the entries are snippets from his columns and his reporting and excerpts from interviews (sometimes with him as the subject of an interview, sometimes with him as the interviewer). Besides the writing that has already been published, there's also letters from friends and family with an occasional enemy writing in, plus some miscellaneous stuff such as Cockburn's plea of not guilty for speeding.

As his readers know, Cockburn is a funny, thoughtful, and observant writer. Despite covering many of the same events as mainstream journalists, such as the presidential conventions and the campaign trail, Cockburn's opinions on these and other topics remain outside the mainstream. This is partially because he is an Irish citizen living in the US, but more because of his left wing politics (he's a Marxist). He's no fan of Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Thatcher and Gorbachev and counts himself among the "imaginers of Utopias on hold." As many Americans celebrated the collapse of communism, Cockburn somberly reflects on the end of the Soviet Union, which he writes once acted as "a counterweight to US imperialism and the terminal savageries of the old European colonial powers."

While Cockburn laments the marginal political role leftists had during the late '80's and early 90's, the book shows that his opinions have some impact or are, at least, noticed. One day's column brings in next week's angry response. For example, in response to the many accusations of satanic child abuse brought against day care workers, Cockburn suggests that children be indicted for perjury when providing false testimony. Some lively correspondence follows. He also writes about the environment, JFK assassination conspiracy theorists (a letter is included from the director of JFK, Oliver Stone), the bicentennial celebration of the French Revolution, California's wild fires, political correctness, and the death of his mother.

When reading this book, one is reminded that a shrill tone of voice often characterizes the discourse of these issues. Cockburn avoids this shrillness and writes in a provocative, yet sane manner and with a strong sense of humor intact. None of the many topics Cockburn writes about are discussed exhaustively here and some readers might have preferred a book reprinting his columns from this time, not just the excerpts. It's less a attempt to be the final word on, say, the devastation of the Amazon rain forests than an attempt to evoke the era that made that devastation possible. It all works. For long time, this book will stand as a funny and interesting record of the events and controversies of the late 20th century.

Cockburn's criticism of Reagan are by and large on the mark. But Reagan has been analyzed and critiqued by far more able critics with far greater credibility. Cockburn, a supposed "radical" and a former paid shill for the PLO (who never bothered to disclose this relationship while he was supposedly an objective reporter), was a long time contributor to the Village Voice. His pieces in The Village Voice over the years were, as often as not, a vile stew composed of ersatz radical politics, bitchy attacks on fellow journalists, and the occasional actual story accompanied by relentless self-promotion. He was also not above character assassination and very selective reading of facts in order to further his agenda du jour. Although he goes after Reagan here, liberals are often Cockburn targets -- he delights in attacking them for not being pure enough for him, even as he often gives right wingers and reactionaries a free pass. (If his recent article taken from his forthcoming book about Al Gore is any example of the book, Cockburn's newest offering is another example of this.

Simply put, there are better Marxists, better writers, better cultural critics and far more able journalists. Take a pass on this book.

Whether he is writing on Reagan, Thatcher or James Bond and travel his essays can not be beat for totally and unapologetically taking class analysis in a wildly creative and laugh out loud direction. Unpedictable, untrivial and totally original.

Get it and remember why Reagan and his machine were so dispicable.