I’ve been having my semi-annual argument with a Jewish friend over, Whether the neocons were Jewish or not. I generally find these arguments pointless because there is an element of fear in them: my friends are nervous that Jews will get blamed for the Iraq debacle. I always say that Some Jews should be blamed for it, and the sooner the liberal Jewish community does its part–by dissecting those rightwing Jewish strands of thought (Greater Israel, for instance; the occupation and colonization of Arab land is a good thing!) that we as Jews are in a better position than anyone to recognize–the sooner our community will be healed, and the U.S. public will understand how this disastrous war came about. One of the big reasons anyway.
I’ve taken now to quoting English scholar Paul Maltby on the subject, who wrote recently:
[Neocon Jonathan] Tobin is concerned – and rightly so – to remind us that not all
neocons are Jewish. Yet surely, if he believes so much in the virtues
of neoconservatism, would he not want proudly to proclaim the leading
role of Jews in the movement?… Perhaps one way to address the issue of the disproportionately
large Jewish presence among the neoconservative leadership is to sweep
it under the carpet, but that kind of cover-up only abets antisemites
with their theories about Jewish plotting in high places…. Instead, a more effective way to confront the problem
would be for Jewish community leaders to come forward and publicly
denounce neoconservative thinking as a betrayal of Jewish values.
Maltby’s point about Jewish pride led me yesterday to a breathrough, when I said to this friend, Look at the Manhattan Project. Yes, Truman dropped the bomb. But a lot of Jews made the bomb. On this popular history site, The Manhattan Project is described as the work of mostly Jewish scientists. I grew up with that understanding.
You can say of the Manhattan Project exactly what you say of the neocons: Not all the brains were Jewish. But in that case, we openly identify the Jews qua Jews because 1, Americans generally think the bomb a good thing (I’m not offering an opinion), and 2, Jews proudly regard scientific brilliance, or more precisely, frontier scientific discovery in that era, before the wide dispersal of education, as an outsider Jewish attribute. (And yes, my dad’s a Jewish scientist, as outsider as they come…)
Neoconservatism-Iraq-war planning is even more Jewish in character, especially when you consider that Tom Friedman, Lawrence Kaplan, Bill Kristol and Paul Berman (four hoursemen of this apocalypse, from NYT, TNR, AEI, and Dissent) offered as a causus belli that Saddam was paying for suicide bombers in Israel. Why didn’t we invade Sri Lanka too? A lot of suicide bombers there.
My advice would be this : to understand the JEWISH (not 'neoconservative') influence on the heart of the defense establishment, go back at least to Hermann Kahn, and his infamous books "Thinking The Unthinkable" and "On Thermonuclear War". Take some time to sample their contents at random, and think yourself back into the period. You can also approach this via the reaction to it, starting with for instance Allen Ginsberg. Either way, you are getting the 'bookends' of jewish influence on postWW2 US geopolitics, the formative forces. Everything since is commentary.
From Haaretz.com
"White man's burden"
By Ari Shavit
"The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history. Two of them, journalists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, say it's possible. But another journalist, Thomas Friedman (not part of the group), is skeptical."
[...]
"Is the Iraq war the great neoconservative war? It's the war the neoconservatives wanted, Friedman says. It's the war the neoconservatives marketed. Those people had an idea to sell when September 11 came, and they sold it. Oh boy, did they sell it. So this is not a war that the masses demanded. This is a war of an elite. Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=280279&contrassID=2&subContrassID=14&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
Most of the Jewish physicists of Europe who contributed to the Manhattan Project had left Germany/Europe before Hitler came to power, or just as his odious racial laws were passed. Einstein (who was NOT involved in the atomic bomb) had permanently left Europe in Dec. of 1932.
Szilard had left Hungary in March of 1933, and a month later Hitler's "Laws" were adopted. Those guys were gone, and only Einstein was German, and Jewish. Szilard was Jewish and Hungarian, a country over which Hitler had NO control yet. Edward Teller was also Hungarian (and non-practicing Jew), but he left before Hitler had control of his native land. Even Paul Wigner, was Hungarian and while his family had a Jewish background neither of his own parents were practicing Jews when he was born in Budapest. Wigner's High School (from which he graduated) was Lutheran, and by 1930 he was teaching in the US. That Lutheran Gymnasium is where he met John von Neumann; who was also from a NON-participating Jewish background and they both ended up teaching in the US in 1930.
Lisa Meitner was an Austrian Jewish female who had worked in Germany with Otto Hahn at the Kaiser Wilhem Institute (Hahn’s specialty was chemistry not physics), and she was the first to see the combination of "matter and energy" conversion as expressed in Einstein’s equasion; if the atom itself was truly split rather than just altered, this was what Rutherford had done years before in the UK to produce a different but already existing element.
Lisa Meitner was living in Sweden at the time, and the realization came to her while walking in the woods with her nephew Otto Frisch. Otto Frisch is the fellow who then officially "coined the term" nuclear fission BTW. A theoretical explanation of nuclear fission of uranium was written by Lisa Meitner and Otto Frisch employing a liquid drop model and coupling it to Einstein’s theory of relativity and the gigantic numbers which would only work if Einstein was right. A few days later (in early 1939), Neils Bohr brought a copy of that paper to the US. Some years before this, without knowing of the then non-existent Meitner/Frisch/Bohr paper; Leo Szilard had already patented a theoretical "fission bomb" design concept in Great Britain, and secretly donated it to the Royal Navy.
Hans Albrecht Bethe had moved from Strassborg to England in October 1933 a month after those "Laws" were passed, and a year later moved to the US to teach at Cornell in 1934/35, and while his mother was Jewish, his father was NOT, and he had not been raised Jewish. And the Canadians, or British, or Commonwealth leading contributors ("Tube Alloys" and MAUD) to the eventual bomb, should count as NON-GERMAN since they either weren't of Jewish background and/or didn't flee Germany to avoid losing their jobs.
What I am trying to point out is that the truly German and German "Jews" who contributed to the Manhattan Project were very few. That European Jews in the field of nuclear physics had fled both before and shortly after Hitler came to power (some were teaching elsewhere), some were studying elsewhere and never returned. Most of the experimental/applied physics was being done in Great Britain, Denmark, and France anyway. Germany led in the theoretical field. "The Law for Restoration of Professional Civil Service" only affected those German nationals who happened to be, by Hitler’s definition "non-Aryan", and inside of German borders at the moment, when it was instituted. However it was NOT until September of 1935 that the "Nuremberg Laws" were passed, and by then the great bulk of both Austrian, Hungarian, German, Danish, and other Jewish scientists had left Europe either before Hitler came to power in 1933/34, or directly thereafter having seen the "writing on the wall".
And it was NOT just the nuclear physicists, but biologists, mathematicians (Klaus Fuchs, a non-jew), and engineers as well. A significant group of them had already been teaching or studying in either the UK or the US while Hitler was still an "odd little loud politician". Fermi was an Italian, his wife was a non-practicing Jew, and both were living as Catholics in Italy.
–
My first generation Irish Catholic uncle worked on the Manhattan project as a physicist phd. He later invented the wind tunnel at Stanford and was vp of Chevron among other things. We have a lot of similar over achievers in our family but zero ethnic identity or solidarity of any kind. Why Phil clings to his is a mystery to me.
Who are the Neoconservative Non-Jews?
http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2008/03/its-not-only-about-palestine.html
Because Zionist Sorelianism has clear affinity with Friedman's ideas, the absence of the any discussion of the connections and interrelations between Friedmanism and Jabotinskianism in The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, by Naomi Klein is a glaring omission. While Jabotinskian Neoconservatism is for the most part a Jewish sect or special interest, Friedmanist Neoliberalism actively proselytizes itself to non-Jews as the true economic religion, whose high priesthood tends for the most part to consist of Jews. Non-Jews like Cheney, Rumsfeld, or Woolsey often come to accept Jabotinskian Neoconservative foreign policy ideas after indoctrination with Friedmanite Neolibeal market theory.
Not only is Klein completely misleading when she implies that Israel's love affair with disaster capitalism only begins after the expections of the Oslo Process proved illusory, but she failed to mention that the erasing of the native population from areas under Zionist control in 1947-8 (Holoexaleipsis or Nakba) with concomitant seizure of practically all movable and immovable assets from Palestinian refugees is probably the earliest and purest example of massive Friedman-style transfer of wealth from the poor of the developing world to a Western elite (the Zionist political leadership) backed by a Western economic elite (mostly New York Jewish investment bankers and the Cousinhood of the wealthiest British Jews). The creation of the State of Israel on the shards of Arab Palestine is the Zionist version of the Shock Doctrine.
Klein neglects to mention that the hyper-wealthy US Zionist elite and Israeli government have been heavily involved directly and indirectly in manipulating the US economy in criminal violation of SEC regulations by stoking, financing, and picking winners in the homeland security investment bubble that she describes in Chapter 14 of her book.
In American discourse, when speaking of the
Jews, it is permissible only to mention
admirable achievements; all other statements
about Jews, when made by non-Jews, are ipso
facto evidence of anti-semitism and thus
to be condemned even without examining the
evidence. One might say that the prevailing
wisdom is De Judearibus Nihil Nisi Bonum.
sorelianism?
"Einstein (who was NOT involved in the atomic bomb)"
(From Einstein's letter to Roosvelt)
===================
"…A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory…"
"…In view of this situation you may think it desirable to have some permanent contact maintained between the administration and the group of physicists working on chain reactions in America. One possible way of achieving this might be for you to entrust with this task a person who has your confidence and who could perhaps serve in an inofficial capacity. His task might comprise the following:
"a) to approach Government Departments, keep them informed of the further development, and put forward recommendations for Government action, giving particular attention to the problem of scouring a supply of uranium ore for the United States;
"b) to speed up the experimental work, which is at present being carried on within the limits of University laboratories, by providing funds, if such funds be required, through his contacts with private persons who are are willing to make contributions for this cause, and perhaps also by obtaining the co-operation of industrial laboratories which have the necessary equipment.
===================
So Einstein was not involved in the atomic bomb in the same way that Kenneth Pollack was not involved in the Iraq war.
By the way that Einstein cult is a mirror reflection of american tendency to take credit for other people's work. Einstein was a commentator on science, protected by people bent on discrediting the german scientific establishment. The only credit that can be attributed to him is to be a faster publisher than the heavy wheights of continental Europe.
Want to worship a god in science? Keep Henri Poincaré in your heart.
Maltby:
…but that kind of cover-up only abets antisemites with their theories about Jewish plotting in high places…
No, what it does is confirm an already existing suspicion. Break the glued-together bond of anti-semite/plotting-cabal. If you want to let light and air into the room.
It's possible there really are plots and complex intrigues, it's possible there aren't any of importance. What's at issue is the truth and validity of the claims. On both sides.
Starting from an assumption of speciousness to the claims of intrigue, then using the tacit validity of that assumption to counteract those same claims, without ever having proved anything, is not a logical refutation.
It begins to look more and more like desperate housekeeping and damage control.
I was reading the isteve blog, chiefly due to the fact that he linked one of my stories.
Here are some of the comments; I find them fascinating in their mindset:
"Especially race realists should know that Ashkenazi Jews are, on average, simply a lot smarter than the rest of the world peoples. That's why they're so succesful. There's not much more to it."
"that Ashkenazi Jews are, on average, simply a lot smarter than the rest of the world peoples"
"But still, none of your races of shkutzim come close to doing the amount of good that we do relative to the amount of evil that we do. And I mean that seriously."
"American Goy, was the "apartheid" remark a reference to Israel's immigration policies? Do you think they should be non-discriminating? I bet people at this blog would be plenty upset if you suggested that for the U.S!"
"Yes, there is a double-standard when it comes to White Christian Males. Our culture allows anyone considered a minority (including women, interestingly enough) to do whatever they can for social cohesion as well as to assist each other in getting a leg up while WCMes are supposed to take it in the ass. Shitry and true and worthy of being loudly pissed about."
Well that one is true actually.
"American ~
You have a Jew problem. Claiming that you don't is an exercise in Denial. The very name that you've crowned yourself with points to your obsession. You should have that looked at and treated.
To get you started on the road to recovery I'll simply reproduce the paragraph that you claim points to the crux of your problem with Jews and ask you to stop flashing your hideously distorted views in public. They do you no credit:
Jews in America represent the whole political spectrum – from anarchists, hippies, centrists, far right and fascist viewpoints (just like every other group in the country, duh!), the Jews in positions of POWER, the NEOCONS…"
I am blown away.
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=9430835&postID=6104594955264236560
or
link to tinyurl.com
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The Irish do take the cake for individuality at the expense of long-term collective ethnic survival, seems to me. I guess, in comparison to other groups, they are the least tribal, the most true American Firsters? All over the board they are, while they last… Will the USA remain (the one and only) proposition nation after, say, 2060?
Mmmm, just who did Einstein have in mind?
Look at this excerpt from a blog hosted by the Minneapolis StarTribune, my hometown newspaper; I'd like to know what you all think:
'Children’s TV Shows for a New Generation of Terrorists
April 2nd, 2008 – 7:52 AM
A young boy enters the White House and accosts President Bush. He accuses the President of killing his dad in the Iraq War, and joining with “the criminal Zionists” to kill his mom in Lebanon and his brothers “in the Gaza holocaust.” Then, drying his tears, the child laughs as he informs Bush that he and “thousands of children” have turned the White House into a “great mosque for the nation of Islam.”
The show ends with the boy repeatedly plunging a sword into the President, who convulses, screams and dies.
A sick fantasy? Sick, yes, but it’s a sickness broadcast to thousands of Palestinian children across Gaza. The episode above is from last weekend’s kids’ programming on Al Aksa, the Hamas television station that broadcasts to Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants.'
Mmmmm, I don't remember seeing this on South Park–how could that possibly be?
Imagine Matt Stone and Trey Parker including factoids about steel's tendency not to melt or scientifically-based theorems regarding controlled demolition in the Twin Towers. Imagine South Park entertaining the Project for a New American Century or NORAD standing down automatic air defenses.
American cartoons at best settle for the usual; they prefer to keep things at the superficial seams– 9/11 theorists are "retards"; the government is "too incompetent" to have executed such a plan; only a "retard" would believe that anyone other than "pissed off" Arabs carried out 9/11; 9/11 conspiracy nuts blame Jews/ blaming Jews is racist and wrong/Shut up, already, etc.
At least Hamas doesn't trumpet the constitutional free play of ideas. Given our legacy and situation, and the Palestinian legacy and situation at this juncture, who is more responsible?
I can just see it now, our little fat irrational hero examines the racial roots of Marxism from its beginnings through the mid-1950s with special emphasis on the suppressed role of zionist jews as the main ideological leaders of that bloody revolution. The once blatant link between jews and communism, a fact that was openly discussed in the mainstream media during the early years of the bolshevik regime, had become an official un-truth, the kind that was conveniently flushed down the orwellian memory hole. Our little fat gentile bigot refers to how academic historians refused to deal with the issue, even as most of them were aware of the facts. A lightbulb goes off in his fat head–this is still true today, as many acclaimed soviet "experts" write detailed histories of the Soviet Union and its rampant mass murder while skating deftly away from all discussion of the ethnic identity of those most responsible for the totalitarian regime and its genocide. Fatty finds a similar evasion of the truth in the massive and highly acclaimed Black book of communism compiled by several French intellectuals. Released to great controversy, South Park can only wonder at what it's reception would have been had it dared to explore the taboo territory of the jewish identity of communism. Unlike cringing academics and cynical journalists concerned for paycheck, reputation, tenure and the politically-correct gods of the day, Fatty says that the apparent enigma of communism was not due merely to bad people with a bad idea and the resolve to enforce it. Undoubtedly, Fatty expounds to the other kids, communism was a bad idea, and it took lots of bad people to implement it, but the marxist nightmare wasn't merely an utopian misadventure. It was an intellectual and political weapon devised and utilized by a specific ethnic group holding an historical view of itself as superior, as well as bearing an historical grievance with gentile society, specifically white christian Europe. While communism's promise of an egalitarian paradise and its threat to bring it about through revolutionary violence may have found many eager and willing listeners among the poor and working classes, they were only to be the instrument, the golem, of the vengeful plans of this specific ethnic minority. By pointing this out, by showing it to be the central issue in the history of communism, Fatty goy proves that, while not all jews are communists and not all communists are jews, communism itself is inherently, fundamentally a jewish creation. In essence, he pontificates, the event all South Park has been conditioned to refer to as the "Russian revolution" was, like Voltaire's Holy Roman Empire, neither Russian nor a revolution. It was a jewish coup d'etat against the Russian Empire, its royal family, and the religion, culture, and society of the Russian peoples. And it resulted in a holocaust of truly earth-shattering proportions, inflicting a death toll of not a mere (questionable) six-million, but of an estimated SIXTY-MILLION approximate deaths in the Soviet Union alone. Fatty goy is really annoyed. It's a veritable Mt. Everest of Mass Murder in comparison to the Nazi molehill. If you doubt that proposition, our rotund goy says, try this little experiment after reading up on it: from Karl Marx to the Rosenbergs, take all the jews out of the story of communism and the "Russian revolution" and see if you can imagine it having happened any other way. You will find it most difficult, Fatty says, if not impossible, to conceive any alternative scenario to those tragic events. The opening of the Soviet archives after the collapse of the communist system revealed that Lenin was one-quarter jewish, and that he favored that aspect of his heritage. OK, next, let's see what the Irish Family Guy has to say about this, and his football headed offspring. You just have to tune in to the new cable carteeon network if you missed any of this.
I am floored Keating.
this blog is filling up with nazis, phil, do think about controlling this or you will be skewered.
Georges Sorel was a French political thinker, who straddled right and left.
He originated the concept of permanent revolution, and his writings were extremely influential on both Labor and Jabotinskian Zionists at the beginning of the 20th century.
I know who Sorel was, Joachim, I have a copy of the new translation of "Reflections on Violence". As frequently, I do not think you know what you are talking about, here.
I can see that one could argue that Jabotinsky received the Sorelian influence via Mussolini, but again this is polemical thinking.
All actual thinking by any human is polemical in nature. So, Rowan Berkeley, what is your point?
By actual thinking of a human being, I mean, as distinguished from, say, Son of Sam thinking a dog's bark was God telling him to kill the enemy.