I was in college when the last social order went out, the WASP establishment, labelled "the Episcopacy" by one of my Harvard classmates. The bluebloods had screwed up bigtime with Vietnam, and had a series of scandals, from the assassinations to Watergate. Hillary Clinton was a staffer to the joint committee that brought down Nixon. Me and my Jewish homeboys at the Harvard Crimson newspaper all resented the exclusive ancien regime, and couldn’t wait to climb into the turrets…
Making way for the Meritocracy, a social order based on talent, excellence and achievement. My people did great. There had been quotas against Jewish inclusion in the old days, as my father remembers, now there were none. When Clinton became president, he appointed two Jews to the Supreme Court and had the most philosemitic presidency in history, according to David Frum, who was one of the Jewish cadre in Clinton’s successor administration, George W. Bush, which was meritocratic to the degree that it depended on Jewish brains, Jewish talent. The neocons arose in part out of hatred for quotas; I remember…
We modeled ourselves on the old establishment, and we could be parochial. The blind spot in the meritocracy has always been the Israel question. The meritocracy just doesn’t get it. Young Jews do; but not the establishment Jews. Yesterday on New York’s WNYC, host Brian Lehrer was skeptical of former spook Michael Scheuer‘s statement that the U.S. has to change its policies in the Middle East. Lehrer wondered whether distancing ourselves from Israel is not a form of appeasement to terrorists. Thus even liberal media Jews decline to confront the Israel-based component of the foreign policy disaster of the last seven years. When Scheuer was off the air, Lehrer’s pledge-drive partner, Bob Henley, a reporter, championed NPR’s coverage of Abu Ghraib and other Bush-Cheney tragedies. The vibe was, Bush and Cheney are the evil ones responsible for this Iraq debacle. Once again giving the neocons immunity– because they are part of the meritocracy, and they are our bad guys. They built the "parallel establishment," Jacob Heilbrunn wrote in his book.
The WSJ reports that Hillary’s desperate fundraising has been eased somewhat by the happy coincidence that AIPAC is having a meeting in Washington at the same time as her finance director is out drumming. Israel-focused hawks are all over Hillary’s campaign. Her establishment is continuous with the neocon one that Heilbrunn described; and this is why she has never fully renounced her Iraq war vote.
Obama’s movement is about a new social order. It is about multiculturalism, excellence without elitism, affirmative action, and even black assimilation. Obama is mixed-race, and home-schooled by his white mother for a time, and an Obama administration would be a melting pot. The message is that parochialism of any sort is hurting the world. His calls for change have made Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations anxious. Young Jews are not. They are embracing the new mood. Watch for the generational split to yawn, when it’s Obama vs. McCain, and the Jewish hawks follow Lieberman into the arms of the Republicans.
Much of neo-con thought is actually Wilsonian and pre-dates Trotsky and the 1930s. If you look closely at the role of the Zionists in getting the USA into WW1, follow the tracks of Balfour, the key is the rubric of "making the world safe for democracy" using the same mold, now marketed as "spreading democracy in the world." It use to be called "the Jewish Problem."
Now it's the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. The conviction was that there will be no peace in the world without solving this problem. It could have been solved but for there was no more land space available in the same way it was before the Nuremberg Trials. Yet the the neocons with their outdated Wilsonian politics remain, close consultants to all top-tier American candidates to lead the world's present only superpower. It seems all the major players, while naming anybody a Hitler, are blindly striving to create a real Hitler as fast as they can. They mean well, of course, as did Wilson.
"Making way for the Meritocracy, a social order based on talent, excellence and achievement."
Supposing there is any accuracy in movie making, the pillars of "The Episcopacy" were described in "Dead Poets Society's" as "Tradition, Honor, Discipline and Excellence," or in the language of "Hellton's" students: "Travesty. Horror. Decadence. Excrement."
Now, we know there is no such thing as a Meritocracy in America but instead the famous Cleptocracy and those three pillars suggested by Phil will eventually receive it's well deserved Hellton version, or maybe a more fitting "Hellel" version in hebraic.
Anyway there seems to be something wrong in calling a new elite "Meritocracy" when the country ruled by it is sinking so fast.
I liked better the "fuckups and suckups" description with it's "nuts and eunuchs" flavour which better explains McCain versus Obama-Hillary.
Sorry Philip but your comment 'Making way for the Meritocracy, a social order based on talent, excellence and achievement. My people did great. There had been quotas against Jewish inclusion in the old days, as my father remembers, now there were none.'
I'm 60 and remember all too well the Jewish 'meritocric' (sic) contribution to the Vietnam War. Avoiding service was what my Jewish friends just did (others too but we are talking about Jews here).
Too many barely literate friends bought their way into Chicago Rush medical school witha $100K bribe (the going rate). Nothing other than a college diploma needed. I'm sure they are top medicaid physicians today and big contributors to whatever also. Others got great LSAT test scores becasue they paid others to take the test for them or their families hired tutors who 'knew the answers.' Some bribed their way into the National Guard. It cost 5K (cash) in Chicago.
Ivy admission officers took cash under the table to insure under grad and grad admission. This was all greased most easily if daddy did a cash business (children of doctors, dentists, lawyers and business owners who got paid in cash and cheated on taxes had a big big advantage).
So lets' not get to carried away with the subject of Jews and the meritocracy. This is America. Wave enough cash and you can get in anywhere. Not all but easily half did this. So the over-representation at the top is not too much to brag about. Rather it is an indictment. (Take Scooter Libby as an example.) He and his ilk are nothing to be proud of. Nothing.
Would one want to be in bed with an ideological or religious zealot, or a common whore? You gete to choose once in a while over human history. David Brown is, quite amazingly, honest.
It appears that the American melting pot is finally starting to claim its share of Jews, who were probably the last hold-outs.
Probably the majority of Jews who refuse to assimilate are going to be increasingly hard-core Zionists due to their racialist mentality. They will join Israel lobbies and Israel-lobby connected organizations; the will continue to assist one another professionally and financially, and they will continue to lobby for American wars and interventions for Israel.
But they will also become increasingly irrelevant due to their fanaticism and bigotry.
It really wasn't all that long ago that the overwhelming majority of Americans thought Joe Lieberman was a good guy. Today, I would bet that at least 40% of informed Americans hate his guts. Organized Judaism is going to undergo a similar transformation in public opinion. It has already started. And the most decent of the Jews are going to walk away from it, leaving a concentrated core of self-marginalizing, frothing-at-the-mouth Zionists.
Let’s just hope that American survives its current Zionist-occupied establishment.
Sorry but Woodrow Wilson did not believe in preventive wars, a unilateral foreign policy, and tying one's country to other powers. He was also quite cautious about supporting a Jewish state in Palestine, despite his general philo-semitism.
I'm about as far from the center of power and influence as one could possibly be, so I have no real idea what group is running the nation. I just don't know why any group would want to claim credit for the mess that the U.S. is in.
I do find it almost laughable that so many Jews talk of their genetic superiority these days. Sure there are gifted Jews, but the issue seems more hype than anything else. It's kind of like when Aaron Spelling kept promoting his daughter as sexy, attractive and entertaining, when the opposite is obviously true. The superiority talk just seems forced.
As far as the meritocracy goes, anyone with a slight grip on reality knows that there is no meritocracy. Again, look at Tori Spelling.
Hows this to laugh about? Schumer-Spitzer-Sarkozy, Axis of schmucks. Jews trying to lead goyim . Add joementum to the mix and gag reflex.
When was it that you were in college? In the 70's as deducted by this post? That would have put your father in college in the 40's or 50's. A time when few Americans went beyond high school. That was a time when colleges and Universities were filled with just as much of a representation of Jews and every other group less blacks, as now.
The only time when there were any such quotas you refer to were in the late 19th and early 20th century in the private elites. And then there were regional, family and even greater quotas on Catholics than Jews in such schools. And surely no blacks allowed.
From one Jew to another, let us be honest on the victimology game.