Shalom, Stephen Cohen

There are those who are praying for doctrinaire Leftist and racial hypocrite Ruth Ginsberg. For her, my prayers are mine own. But another liberal Jew died recently, and for him I'd speak my peace here.

I'd been vaguely aware of Stephen Cohen from the 1980s. He was one of many liberals at the time who sought détente with the Soviet Union. I was Underage B&, as 4chan puts it, so didn't pay much attention; I was also antiSoviet, so filed him under my "people not to read" file.

And so it went through the 1990s, when I found Cohen in The Nation, a very Left rag I didn't bother with (and still don't). In 2015ish I found Cohen again... but now, to my shock, in Right media. Once again he was preaching détente, with respect to Putin. (I'd thought I saw him speak at the Jaipur festival that September, but - looking back - I seem to be mistaken. PDF.)

Based on my wholly-impressionistic observations, Cohen was consistent. Cohen wanted one thing out of this world: peace between these United States and all the Russias. That, throughout his career, he mostly got.

And so did we. Our Third World War never went nuclear, bomb-tests and Chernobyl aside. Further: if the "war on [Islamic] terror" was our Fourth, I understand that Cohen was better advised than the neocons on how to prosecute that.

May his memory be a blessing.