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6+ Works 539 Membros 18 Críticas

About the Author

Max Blumenthal is an award-winning, New York Times-bestselling journalist whose articles and video documentaries have appeared in The Nation, New York Times, Huffington Post, Salon, and others. He is a Puffin writing fellow at The Nation Institute. His website is www.maxblumenthal.com.

Includes the name: Max Blumenthal

Obras por Max Blumenthal

Associated Works

Hustler Magazine | January 2008 | Volume 34, No. 08 (2008) — Contribuidor — 1 exemplar

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Data de nascimento
1977-12-18
Sexo
male
Nacionalidade
USA
Locais de residência
New York, New York, USA
Ocupações
journalist
Relações
Blumenthal, Sidney (father)
Organizações
The Daily Beast
Alternet
The Grayzone
Prémios e menções honrosas
Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism (2019)

Membros

Críticas

A devastating testimony on Israel's military assault on virtually defenceless Gaza in 2014. An intrepid journalist and first-hand witness, Max Blumenthal covers not just the damage inflicted on Gaza, the people and the place, but also explores the political and military strategies used by the government of Israel to justify the war. This included the dubious linking of Hamas to a criminal kidnapping and murder of Israeli youths in the West Bank as an excuse to attack Gaza. The similarities of this "war" to the current conflict in Gaza (after 7 October 2023) are startling - but if anything the loss of life, especially civilians, and damage to the infrastructure of Gaza are on a scale hardly imagined in 2014.
I also recommend viewing Max Blumenthal's video on the Electronic Intifada website for an alternative view on the 7 October Hamas attack which precipitated the current Israeli assault on Gaza. Many difficult questions are raised, about both Israel and Hamas, to put it mildly..
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
noellib | 1 outra crítica | Dec 26, 2023 |
When I picked up the book, I suspected that the focus might be to highlight the affect on society by ultra-religious conservatives, i.e., anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-secular, anti stem cell research, anti Planned Parenthood, anti-condom distribution in Aids afflicted Countries, etc., etc., etc. However, it's more a book which takes many conservatives to task for their individual failings. There are many included in Blumenthal's sights, including the Reverend Ted Haggard, Congressmen Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Mark Foley, Senators Larry Craig and David Vitter, and many others. So the book is much more about the weakness and failings of many of our Conservative leaders and leaders of the religious right, more so than the weakness or failings of the movement itself. However, if the leaders are shown to be phonies, it raises doubts about their beliefs in what they preach, and raises the question if their intent is to use their influence for their own ends of power and wealth.
There may well be a group of ultra-conservative Christians, Jews, and Muslims that agree that "shellfish and pork", "usury", or even shaving are forbidden, and could be punishable by death. While some of the most conservative religious believers may try to follow Bible teachings to their fullest, most Americans tend to look past many prohibitions which seem inconsistent with modern lifestyle. Try telling the modern American woman that "wives shall be ‘submissive’ to their husbands" (I Peter 3:1) and women aren't to "wear gold or pearls" (I Timothy 2:9); or "dress in clothing that pertains to a man" (Deuteronomy 22:5). The author makes a point that if the beliefs of the most conservative religious right over-influence our elected officials, the courts, and the laws they support, and the Republican Party adopts the religious platform of the most conservatives, many moderates not tied to these old traditions may be threatened and lost to the Party.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
rsutto22 | 8 outras críticas | Jul 15, 2021 |
This book makes a good argument that the national security state is ironically responsible for our greatest security threats. I don't buy it 100%, but it is well presented. Generally the facts used are accurate, but there are cases where they're a bit cherry-picked, and other important (and possibly more important/significant) things are missing. The core arguments about AQ and IS being primarily the result of our own actions are solid; the peripheral arguments about the individual decisions not being good on their own weren't as well supported. (For instance, defeating communism absolutely was worth the blowback in Afghanistan, and the support of horrible people in Afghanistan didn't automatically mean AQ would rise to the same level it has; it required multiple things.)… (mais)
 
Assinalado
octal | 1 outra crítica | Jan 1, 2021 |
As they say in Spanish "va sumando," or "it adds up." Blumenthal's landmark book is written in extremely accessible journalistic anecdotal style. There is no theory. But the anecdotes just keep adding up, forcing the reader to draw some of their own conclusions, unable to avert their gaze and dismiss each story as just an individual story. The fascist, racist nature of the Zionist system becomes undeniable. And as the book comes to a close, Blumenthal draws the reader to Germany, where the only place that young Jewish Israelis feel at home is within a pluralistic society. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Max is arguing for ethnic pluralism everywhere over an (impossible) ethnic purity in Israel, a country stolen by force of arms, as the basis of the Jewish response to the Holocaust.

When Ian Lustick, the very liberal Zionist political scientist and friend of Blumenthal's father, received Max at UPenn, part of a friendly effort to break the media blackout around this book (in contrast to the wide coverage of his previous book on the Republican party), the reception was friendly but condemnatory. Lustick starts speaking at 22m50s and goes on at great length with his own anecdotal stories. These stories seem to lull the audience into a disarmed position, as the stories repeatedly reinforce Lustick's caring, considerate, anti-racist, liberal credentials. And then, all of a sudden, at the end of all this storytelling, starting at minute 36, he does a few things. First, he accuses Blumenthal of being too anecdotal and not sufficiently serious. Second, he suggests that Blumenthal is making a mountain out of molehill and overreacting. Why can't we just give Israel a little more time? Thirdly, finally, and most importantly, he suddenly springs the anti-semetic label on Blumenthal, accusing him of willing 'the end of Jewish collective life in Israel,' which is probably an accurate accusation, but which deliberately sounds like he is willing the end of Jewish life itself - the complete opposite of what Blumenthal is advocating.

These two positions really sum up the divide inside the Jewish community. Should the response to the Holocaust be "never again, for us," or "never again, for anyone"? It is a divide between exclusionists and universalists, the two great strands of Jewish thinking through the ages. Max is clearly a universalist, as are most Palestinians. Lustick wants his ethnically pure enclave, notwithstanding the cost to the native Palestinian inhabitants of the land - a cost laid bare in page after page of Blumenthal's book. And while the Jewish community debates amongst itself, the Palestinians suffer under the Israeli jackboot and, as also becomes clear through Blumenthal, the soul of Judaism itself corrodes. To understand the panic of liberal Zionists like Ian Lustick, indeed to understand Israel itself, this important book is required reading.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upv9KUuks_8
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
GeorgeHunter | 4 outras críticas | Sep 13, 2020 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
6
Also by
1
Membros
539
Popularidade
#46,220
Avaliação
4.1
Críticas
18
ISBN
31

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