Broadcast August 8th, 10-11:00 a.m. Central (1500 GMT) on NoLiesRadio.org, archived here. Note: TruthJihad.com subscribers can listen to shows on-demand before they are broadcast – and also get free downloads! If you are a subscriber, just log in to the members area of TruthJihad.com and go to the “Private Blog” to get early access to the shows.
Guest: Ralph Schoenman, legendary pioneer (with Mya Shone) of truth jihadi style radio with the seminal show Taking Aim; and author of The Hidden History of Zionism.
Ralph Schoenman is one of my heroes and role models. He was Bertrand Russell’s personal secretary and general secretary of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, a leading light of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and an activist in the movement to prosecute war criminals including those responsible for the murder of four million Vietnamese. Ralph is also one of the great figures of the JFK truth movement and the 9/11 truth movement, and a leading critic of Zionism.
Though you might think we agreed on almost everything (and you would be largely right) we manage to spend most of this interview arguing! Ralph doesn’t accept the new information uncovered by people like James Douglass and Peter Janney indicating that JFK underwent a profound “turn towards peace” during the last year of his life; and he also rejects James Petras‘s thesis that the Zionist Power Configuration dominates US Mideast policy and was the prime force behind the 9/11 wars.
Other than that, though, I have to admit that Schoenman is a living legend and a genius, and I’m honored to walk (more or less) in his footsteps.
This from today's New York Times would seem
to rather soundly refute Ralph's position in the interview
that Israel is just the instrument of the U.S.
He sees everything in terms of class. If each time
you used the word 'Jew' you had substituted 'Zionist',
which he equates with fascist, you would have had
much more agreement. Did Ralph tell you that
he was on the plane with Khomeini on his return
to Iran?
U.S. Diplomacy on Gaza Has Little Sway on Israel
Aug. 5, 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/world/middleeast/gaza-is-straining-us-ties- This from today's New York Times would seem to rather soundly refute Ralph's position in the interview that Israel is just the instrument of the U.S. He sees everything in terms of class. If each time you used the word 'Jew' you had substituted 'Zionist', which he equates with fascist, you would have had much more agreement. Did Ralph tell you that he was on the plane with Khomeini on his return to Iran? U.S. Diplomacy on Gaza Has Little Sway on Israel Aug. 5, 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/world/middleeast/gaza-is-straining-us-ties-to-israel.html?emc=edit_th_20140805&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=63905770&_r=0to-israel.html?emc=edit_th_20140805&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=63905770&_r=0
Interesting to listen to, but also difficult to hear him roll out all these old smears and deliberate distortions of history, JFK, the Kennedy family, etc. I had to restrain myself from turning off the interview. Who wants to hear this totally biased, out-of-date crap, which I suspect, hides a bitter ethnic rivalry behind it? I sense this in the rigidity of both Chomsky and Schoenman. Their refusal to consider the ongoing work on the JFK assassination is, frankly, irrational. Or maybe it is rational, just biased, and a reaction to Joe Kennedy's not wanting the US to enter the war against Germany, and the Kennedy family's reputed anti-Semitism (due in part to Joe's Hollywood and financial sector experiences). It would be better if we all could discuss these "dark" areas openly. There is much hidden (or politely ignored) ground in our political and social history. Until we can find an open, truthful, "higher ground" way to talk about history and current events, we won't be able to get on with the building of the heavenly city, here or anywhere else. But I guess that is what you are trying to do, particularly in this kind of contentious interview with a guy who sounds like a decent sort, but hopelessly stuck in his views. One of my best and oldest friends has said virtually all the same things as Schoenman, in the same knowing, condescending, imperious manner, which exasperates me to no end. I couldn't have stayed with this, the way you did. Keep up the good work.
D
I think Ralph's take on JFK and Zionist power in America is a good example of "missing the paradigm shift." He's still stuck in the old, leftist, pre-9/11 paradigm. Kuhn argues that the vast majority of experts always remain within the paradigm they grew up in, no matter how much contradictory evidence arises. Only people who are unusually flexible and/or empirical – Petras being a shining example – are able to follow the evidence to the new paradigm.
I just listened to your interview with Ralph Schoenman. It seems he has all the answers, and they all seem to come from some variation of the Marxist perspective — 'ruling class' and 'means of production' and 'imperialism' being major anchors. It's as if nothing you could say would be right, making him, the arbiter of all correct analysis. What a dogmatist! Thanks for standing up to him.
Richard
Most interesting show! Most interesting conflicts too.
I think he was right about the Kennedies being compromised. It doesn't make sense to me that Robert would stay so absolutely quiet about his brother's assassination and then hope to fix all of that once he came to power. That just wasn't Bobby's style. He was an in-your-face type of person. By Nov. of 1963, he would have known how things work and that Presidents DON'T have absolute power (or John wouldn't have been killed).
I tend to believe that He and John had set up the assassination plan for Castro -or given consent to it to pacify the Mob for losing their gambling casinos in Cuba- and the plan was used on JFK instead. If Castro HAD been assassinated, the two would have denied knowing anything about it. Instead, the plan was turned around and used on John and Robert was left speechless.
So Robert said NOTHING. I expect that he expected that if he ever GOT to be President, he would be doing some heavy weeding for sure. If he'd truly been a chicken, he would never have made a run for President. He figured that he could still beat them.
I think you were mostly right about John having a change of mind in the latter part of his presidency though. He was still young and "impressionable" and probably thought that he could make "the difference." Let's face it, it must be pretty depressing to continually work in a dog-eat-dog environment. I think the entire elitist system MUST be insanely competition driven … just the same as the corporate world, but narrower.
On the other hand, I think Schoenman was quite wrong about Jews NOT being involved consentually with Zionism and a bit overly sensitive about the "race" issue. Kind of makes sense if Schoenman still calls himself a Jew.
I've often asked, what it is that makes a Jew and why would people WANT to be Jews? The best answer I've gotten so far, is that they have great celebrations!~ Wow.
I'm a Mennonite by heritage and I can point to some notable things that Mennonites stand for that are pride-worthy … even though I'm not a "practicing" Mennonite by any means. I don't believe what they believe, concerning God and Jesus and that automatically makes me a non-Mennonite.
But what's a Jew?
They have no identifiable race…
They're not required to adhere to any religious beliefs …
So they're basically a club or a fraternity.
And anyone belonging to such a "thing" would never want to criticize it too much, would they?
Just really fascinating to see how that works. Kind of like admitting that -regrettably- your brother is in a gang but it's unthinkable to admit that your brother is actually the gang leader!~
Jews are much like Christians (and maybe Muslims too) … in that they FAVOR their own, before others. Christians support Zionism because they think it's Biblical and Jews support it because they believe it's THEIR thing and it's succeeding.
-VG
A very interesting and enjoyable conversation with the inimitable Ralph Schoenman. I detect a degree of rigidity and blinkered certainty in Ralph's analysis of imperial power, and a rather narrow conception of what influences social and political movements and developments. I think there's plenty of evidence to suggest that ethnic, religious and ideological factors influence the accumulation, distribution and exercise of power within and between polities over time. I think it is untenable to maintain that ethnic and/or socio-political creeds have zero impact on the disposition or motivations of those who control the means of production over any particular system or society.
Ralph's well worn renditions of stereotypical Marxist class analysis have vanishingly little to do with understanding the nuances of intra-ruling-class rivalries and conflict, or the covert machinations of hidden power plays and deep state actors. While Ralph does an excellent job of explicating his structural analysis, at the end of the day, I find it no more enlightening than Chomsky's version of how & why imperial power operates the way it does.