This is Not Progressivism

- By Kim Petersen - February 21, 2006

The progressive spectrum is wide ranging. Progressives are not homogeneous and dissension on viewpoints should be expected. But certain characteristics are defining features of progressives. The stereotyping of a group and holding prejudices based upon such stereotypes is contrary to progressive principles. When someone from the progressive spectrum writes viewpoints considered anathema, it is incumbent that other progressives dissociate themselves from such views. 

John Kaminski is a writer described on his website as an "Internet phenomenon [who] is the prototype of a new generation of political reporters and social analysts who are not corrupted by the thought-deadening corporate media mindlock." Kaminski does deftly capture the despair and outrage, shared by many progressives, at the poverty, carnage, and horror being wreaked in the world by imperialist-Zionist interests. Kaminski, however, separates himself from many people usually considered progressives. Sometimes this separation appears to be self-serving. For instance, prominently displayed on Kaminski's website is the following comparison of himself to a man touted as the world's foremost intellectual: "Like Noam Chomsky, (Kaminski) should be considered a national treasure among those who still hold out hope of resurrecting the heart & soul of America from the greasy clutches of the cryptocracy." [emphasis in original] 

One wonders about the practice of using Chomsky for self-promotional efforts and otherwise harshly criticizing him. Kaminski describes Chomsky as a left gatekeeper [1] and dependent on Jewish financing. [2] 

Whether writer Kaminski labels himself a progressive or not, much of his writing encompasses views shared by progressives: being anti-war, anti-capitalism, and anti-Zionism. It is his views on Jewishness and Zionism that are problematic from a progressivist perspective. While the earlier essays of Kaminski sometimes alluded to a stereotyping of Jews, Kaminski has abandoned all such pretense now. 

In his most recent essay, Kaminski writes: 

The Zionist monster includes all who call themselves Jews, because there is no difference between Zionism and Judaism. Everything blamed on Zionists is justified by the Talmud. 

Judaism is only the religion of the Jews, yet it controls the world, which doesn't say much for the character of the rest of the world, or, for that matter, the power of its religions, because they all have been completely subverted by the concessions to human greed that have obliterated the integrity of all other creeds and wiped out any truly safe places to live in this depraved devil's bargain. 

The monstrous murder machine that was the Soviet Union was a Jewish enterprise initially financed from New York and London. The provocation for World Wars One and Two was entirely Jewish, wars to finance the new Federal Reserve system, a scam that has continued ever since, war after war, to this very sad day. [3]

Equating Jewishness with Zionism denies that there are Jews who oppose the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and slow motion genocide of Palestinians. From personal experience, I know this to be untrue. 

Unfortunately, Kaminski's outburst is not an aberration. In a piece that appeared last November, Kaminski wrote of a "worldwide Jewish assault on freedom of speech," of a "Jewish-controlled U.S./UK/Israeli axis of evil now plundering the planet for profit," and a "new Jewish Holocaust religion [that] creeps around the world, spread by the efforts of a powerful yet clandestine network of Jewish supremacists, stifling thought and promoting Jewish profligacy and poverty and misery for everybody else wherever it spreads." [4] This is rather alarming material and certainly not progressive in content. 

I asked Kaminski then, by email, if he considered Jews to be a monolith in opposition to historical revisionism. I noted, "There is no suggestion in the article that this is a certain segment of the Jewish population. There is no mention that some Jews oppose the thought police tactics against historical revisionists." 

Kaminski responded: 

Not all, only 95 percent of Jews, eh? No sale, Kim. The Zionist label is a false distinction; all Jews support Israel in their hearts. 

I believe the freedom of speech issue is the way to go. All ideas can be spoken. If they are wrong, they will be defeated and discredited in the court of public opinion, UNMANIPULATED public opinion. 

The purpose of the debate is to ferret out the real reasons for World War Two, combine that revelation with the real story about 9/11, and begin the reconstitution of the entire world government structure into a more family friendly entity. 

I have no quibble with the search for knowledge and truth. I acknowledge the inalienable right to question history and to speak about it. But to single out one cultural/religious group in its entirety for censure is objectionable because it is not only unverifiable but untrue. 

A progressive friend sympathized with Kaminski, noting that he expressed "so many noble thoughts, so many unverified facts and so many conclusions that screams at each other ... well ... I think K is very frustrated." 

I emailed Kaminski again about his latest article and iterated my question if Jewishness equates with Zionism. His reply was unequivocal:  

Hi Kim. As you see in my last piece, "How long do you have?" I firmly say that everything done by Zionists is justified by the Talmud. I DO see Jews as monolithic about Israel, no matter how much some may protest that they're not. But that percentage game is really a red herring. Those IN CHARGE of Judaism are certainly monolithic about Israel, and even the Neturei Karta types who pretend to scorn Israel are still monolithic about Jewish superiority. 

There is absolutely no difference between Judaism and Zionism, except that Zionists also include duped, pandering Christians. Do you fully understand that Soviet terror was wholly a Jewish enterprise when it started? Therefore, the decades long Communist scare was in reality a Jewish scare, only the language was twisted so that most people never really understood that. As most people don't understand that it is really the same deal now, only now there are laws prohibiting people from talking about it. 

Jews are not the only target of Kaminski. In another article he exposed his homophobia: "The real problem is not with Zionist mindlocked media, which sabotages our future by teaching first-graders to accept homosexuality and other anarchist fantasies. [5]

Kaminski is a talented writer who palpably feels so much for the dispossessed, the downtrodden, and the victims of war. He skillfully depicts the disgust, the anger, the frustration, and bathos evoked by capitalist and imperialist military aggressions. Kaminski's writing is learned and yet he can at times communicate so freely about so many facts, mixed in with loose assertions and the expectation that readers will be persuaded. Kaminski maintains, "Identifying the perpetrators is always the key step." He leaves no doubt as to who the perpetrators of much of the evil in the world are. Kaminski chooses to malign an entire group. This is very dangerous, and differs little from how Nazism targeted entire groups to transport to concentration camps.  

Progressives should steer clear of such stereotyping and prejudices. 

Kim Petersen, Co-Editor of Dissident Voice, lives in the traditional Mi'kmaq homeland colonially designated Nova Scotia, Canada. He can be reached at: kim@dissidentvoice.org.

ENDNOTES 

[1] Victor Thorn & Lisa Guliani (2004, May 1). "WING Spotlight Interview: John Kaminski," Wing TV.  

[2] Says Kaminski, "What we're seeing is that some of the finer websites on the Net are limiting themselves as to where they can go in regard to freedom of speech, because they don't want to jeopardize their Jewish financing, or run afoul of mind-locking Holocaust laws that eat away at everyone's free speech. Amy Goodman and Noam Chomsky fell down this rabbithole long ago, and haven't been heard from since." John Kaminski (2006, 4 February). "Pain in the Brain: Footprints of the elephant in our living room," Rude Macedon. 

[3] John Kaminski (2006, February 18). "How long do you have? Will you wait to be killed, or ID the real perpetrators?" 

[4] John Kaminski (2005, 18 November). "The Jewish war on freedom of speech," Truth Seeker.

[5] John Kaminski (2005, 17 December). "A night at the opera: We're lost in the music, and cannot hear the words," Rude Macedon.

Other Recent Articles by Kim Petersen

* Europe's Free Speech Paradox
* Remembering with Shame and Horror
* Before Columbus: Revisionism and Enlightenment
* Desperately Seeking Victory in a War Already Lost
* Progressivism, Skepticism, and Historical Revisionism
* Resisting Capitalist-Imperialist Assimilation: Interview with Stewart Steinhauer
* The Morbid Symbolism of the Yasukuni Shrine
* Elementary Morality and Torture
* Darkness Over Empire
* Anti-Israel?
* Syria in the Imperialist Crosshairs 

* The Struggle to Restore the Dignity of Labor
* Gizen: Perverted Principle in Japan
* The Need to Speak Out: Canada's Governor Generalship
* Antithetical Heroism
* Progressives and the Imperialist Line
* Whose Salmon?
* American Violence in Iraq: Necrophilia or Savagery? Part Five
* American Violence in Iraq: Necrophilia or Savagery? Part Four
* American Violence in Iraq: Necrophilia or Savagery? Part Three
* American Violence in Iraq: Necrophilia or Savagery? Part Two
* American Violence in Iraq: Necrophilia or Savagery? Part One
* Darwinian Survival of the Fittest Meets Wal-Mart and Hiroshima
* Making Sense of Terrorism
* The Message from the London Bombings
* Face to Face with the Absurd
* The Counterrevolution: Capitalism's Ugly Head in China
* Damage Control Over the Downing Street Memo
* Rivaling Pax Americana
* Angels of Death
* Hating the Bible
* Canada's Oil Invasion
* Eating Profit: Frustrations of the Salmon-Farming Industry
* Hypocrisy Abounding
* Fueling Imperialism: It's the Crude, Dude
* Progressivism and Free Speech for All
* Objectivity in Independent Media, Part 4
* Objectivity in Independent Media, Part 3
* Objectivity in Independent Media, Part 2
* Objectivity in Independent Media, Part One
* The Never Again Mantra
* The Rationale of Suicide Bombing
* Gauging the Worth of US Troops in Neocon Eyes
* A Sporting Revolution: The Parecon Hockey League
* A Stain Upon the Sea: Profit Over Wild Salmon
* Zionist Propaganda in Progressive Wool
* Securing Canadian Political Obeisance: Halifax Greets Bush
* The Footprint of an Out-of-Control Behemoth Leaving a Trail of Bodies in its Wake

HOME