Why The Propaganda?

66 T I K K U N W W W. T I K K U N . O R G J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 radical system change in the real world. If this seems to blur utopia and pragmatism , one need only look at Nader himself, who probably knows as much as Rahm Emmanuel about how Washington lobbyists, congressional committees, and presidents actually operate. What makes Nader remarkable is that he has refused to compromise utopian ideals while totally engaging the real world over the last five decades and delivering some of the most important changes from the Left in America in the last century. Nader’s blending of utopianism and pragmatism makes the book a genuine creative leap in genre and substance. Some of the most interesting parts are on nitty-gritty subjects such as how health insurance companies operate to cheat customers and manipulate congressional committees; I re-read these parts several times. These real-world insights would stand on their own as powerful analyses even outside of the larger utopian narrative. But it is the insistence on leftist utopianism and transcendence of pragmatic pessimism that is the real story. How many leftist books leave you feeling hopeful, even optimistic? How many offer you a picture of a new world that inspires you to act? Tikkun readers will, of course, think about Michael Lerner’s work and that of other Tikkun writers. But they are the exception. While inspiring so many, they have also been widely critiqued, even in parts of the Left, for their “unreasonable” idealism and utopianism. Nader has understood that until leftist writers and readers and activists can integrateasystemiccritiqueofcapitalism with a compelling vision of change, the U.S. Left will decline faster than it has in recent decades. For it is utopian sensibilities —impossible ideals that we refuse to sacrifice—that fuel movements and create change. In Europe, Marxist socialists did not get socialist utopias. But by imaginingrevolutionarychange,theydid create social democratic societies more humane and peaceful than our own. In the absence of such leftist utopianism , we will only sink further into despair and provide the opening for the rightistutopianismthatfuelsmovements such as the Tea Party. Therein lies the dystopia which has become the only reality for too many Americans and, sadly, too many on the Left. ■ CharlesDerber,professorofsociologyatBoston College, has just published Greed to Green: Solving Climate Change and Remaking the Economy. WHYTHE PROPAGANDA? ALETHALOBSESSION:ANTI-SEMITISM FROMANTIQUITYTOTHEGLOBALJIHAD byRobertS.Wistrich RandomHouse,2010 Review by Milton Viorst A s an admirer of Robert S. Wistrich, I picked up this huge book of nearly 1200 pages with anticipation. I had read the author’s earlier work, The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph, and found it careful, intelligent, and fair, as well as more manageable in size. It had won the Austrian State Prize for History, whichinmyjudgmentitmerited.Wistrich taught me much about the social mix that existed during the era when the seeds of Zionism were sprouting. MyownresearchonZionismmademe particularly interested in Wistrich’s account of the relationship between Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement, and Dr. Moritz Gudemann, the chief rabbi of Vienna and an earlysupporter who later turned on Herzl. Like most Viennese Jews, Gudemann was an assimilationist who genuinely believed, despite the riptide of anti-Semitism, that JewshadamosthopefulfutureinEurope. He denounced Herzl for giving up the struggle against anti-Semitism at home to urgeJews“togrowvegetablesinPalestine.” But Gudemann also argued that a nationalist Jewish state—“based on cannon and bayonets”—was likely to be as warlike andintolerantastheincreasinglybelligerent states of Christian Europe. It was a prescient observation, unique to GudemannIbelieve ,andawarningthatJewish Chomsky and Jacoby both hint at the larger historical tragedy: the potential disappearanceoftheU .S.Left,itself.Forwhat is the Left if not the carrier of the vision of whatisimpossibletoday?TheLeftexiststo transform the very sense of possibility—as Tom Hayden has said, the radicalism of todayisthecommonsenseoftomorrow. With his new book, Ralph Nader— always the iconoclast and visionary—has created a new genre. Nader breaks completely with the prevailing pessimistic pragmatism, writing of the revolution that might not seem so out of reach if only we believed in its possibility. Nader hammers out this fable on...