I had dinner with a smart friend, an Arabist, from across the sea. Here are some things he said. What if they are true?
--Egypt had a Parliament and a democracy till 1952 and the takeover by Nasser and the other officers. Israel’s inception transformed the entire region. It has had a retrograde effect on all Arab societies. The appearance of a colonialist militant state, threatening Arab neighbors, hardened all those states. The Arab dictatorships need to be rid of the Israel problem in order to reform. If the U.S. were able to solve the Israel/Palestine problem tomorrow, it would have a staggering effect on the region in spreading democracy.
--The fear of all moderates in the region is
Armageddon. Because look at it: the struggle has become religiosized. The
religious parties are taking over in Israel and in the Occupied Territories.
Religious people don’t care about destroying the world if they are right. (This is precisely what Israeli
negotiator Tal Becker said at the AIPAC conference!) And just think, Iraq may be the worst. In ten
years they might be the most religious, Israel-hating society of all.
--I will tell you how the Arab societies feel about the
Jewish state. Today: they don’t care that it is there. This is new. There was a time in the 70s and the 80s
when the peace talks meant nothing. They said, we will take care of Israel later.
Sign the deal now, come back later and take care of the Jewish state. Now they
don’t feel that way. They say: It’s not going anywhere. We have to move
forward. We are tired of this. Let us get on with life. There are just two
issues to be resolved: there must be compensation for the Palestinians who were expelled and
whose property was confiscated, in 1948, and Jerusalem. Jerusalem cannot be
undivided. Because of the great religious sites.
--The Israelis wanted war. Look at the Lavon Affair. Egypt was close to making a deal, in the 1950s. Sharett was for it. Ben Gurion was out of power, but he didn’t want an accommodation with Egypt, he wanted more antagonism. Without that, the Israeli state could not grow. The Diaspora Jews would not support it, and all the millions of Arab Jews in Baghdad, Morocco, and Egypt, they wouldn’t leave, they had no desire to leave, unless there was more disturbance.
--Look what the Camp David peace deal did to Egyptian society: froze the dictatorship in place. The president of Egypt gets billions from the U.S. to use as he likes. In a democracy, he would have to seek the consent of the people.
--Look what has happened to your society. You used to have an old boy network. They made sure their children got into the elite schools, the elite jobs. That changed in the 90s. The WASP elite is over. What have you replaced it with. A meritocracy. Obama can be president. That is good. But where is the elite cohesion? I see only one group with power and espirt de corps in your society. The Zionists. Sheldon Adelson and Ari Fleischer and Doug Feith, marching off into history. Who will take them on? Can the WASPs regroup? (I laughed).
--The lobby is the real reason your society went to war. There was no oil interest in going to war. The oil interest was in lifting sanctions, and getting oil to $5 a barrel. Yes I agree Cheney may have had fantasies. But the real reason was Bernard Lewis saying, we must smash an Arab capital, because all they respect is force.
--Look at your presidents, what is the lesson of Middle East policy. Carter took on the lobby, so did
George H.W. Bush. Neither of them had a second term. Bill Clinton learned the
lesson, so did George W. Bush. I know how upset people are about Iran getting nukes. In 1963, John F
Kennedy warned Levi Eshkol that Israel must not get nukes. There are rumors on the internet that Kennedy was killed because of this. Who can take that seriously? But imagine if there is a civil war in Israeli society over giving up the West Bank. That could happen. Are you worried about those nukes?
--The power of the internet is not understood. Look at your
blog. Aren’t you afraid that the antisemites read you (Yes, I
say, but I am a journalist and my country is in crisis and I need to talk about this stuff). The problem is that your mainstream media can't talk about these ideas and people now find their company on the
internet. It can have a dynamic effect. Let me tell you something. The printing
press was the most important blow for nationalism in history. Before that people
could not speak their own language to their own people. Rome ruled, and communicated in Latin. 100 years
before Martin Luther a Czech priest was burned at the stake for saying what Luther would say. What changed? The printing press came, and they could not stop the
reformation. This was a convulsive period in history. In 1609 there were 21
million Germans. By the time they signed the treaty of Westphalia in 1648 there were 9
or 10 million Germans. Half the population, destroyed because of the rise of nationalism. What will the internet unleash?
--There were times when religions actually brought people together. They
understood their commonality, above nation and ethnicity. We need a superreligion now, when
the religions are fighting one another, well above the nations.
--We need to speak to the black Sudanese Muslim. He sees
the Palestinian being beaten on television and the whole world collapses for him into Israeli oppression, sponsored by the U.S. Why is that black Mulsim focused on a white man being
beaten more than a thousand miles away? The Arab world needs to change that, so does the U.S.
My friend is a pessimist. I'm an optimist. We were sitting at a bar. I grabbed a napkin and wrote
the number 62 percent. That is the figure on intermarriage among American Jews under 35.
It is just a fact of American leadership culture. These Jews are not tribalist. These Jews are representative of the next generation of universalist Jews, empowered and
educated, who will know Arabs. They will help to lead my society out of these bonds into the future.
Re: Intermarriage statistics
Doesn't that cut both ways? I know plenty of Jews who marry non-Jews but who persuade their husband/wife to convert to Judaism.
Rothschild Conspiracies, Turks, and Jew-Gentile Relations: Several not quite random thoughts.
June 25, 2008
by Hereward Lindsay
June 21, 2008
Part I
Rothschild conspiracy stuff has generally been detrimental to serious consideration of the problems in relations between Jews and Non-Jews.
It is true that the Rothschilds emerged early in the course of Jewish emancipation in Europe as a major financial player.
It is also true that they were loyal to their race and used that power to assist Jews around the world and to push an agenda favorable to their ilk.
I am not an expert on Rothschilds but am aware that they influenced British policy and were able to nudge the British to help Jews around the world in the heyday of the British Empire. The Rothschilds played a role, for instance, in getting the British (and the French) to intervene in the 1800’s when the Turks arrested a number of Jews in Damascus and accused them of the ritual murder of a Catholic priest. This is an interesting incident of which many readers will be aware, but I’ll return to this item in Part II of this commentary.
While the Rothschilds certainly used their influence to impact policies in Britain and elsewhere, I doubt the Rothschild banks were ever the all-powerful-power-behind-the-throne they have been made out to be in the literature of anti-Semitism.
And whatever the role the Rothschilds played in the 19th century, they do not appear to be significant now or in the past several generations.
There are scads of Jewish-owned or -controlled banks vastly more powerful than the Rothschilds. The Rothschilds do not appear to play much of a role any more.
Indeed, it appears that one of the Rothschild scions, Victor Rothschild, may have been a low level Communist spy on the fringes of the Cambridge cell. If the Rothschilds ever were the mega-power element within a Jewish conspiracy, which some conspiracy theorists make them out to be, then the descent from omnipotent string pullers to serving Stalin as a second-tier member of a Stalinist spy ring is a shocking example of downward social mobility.
I have long had the opinion that the Establishment pushes conspiracy theories as a distraction. The intent is to distract the most active and observant opposition from the obvious and also to discredit conspiracy theories in general.
As I once told Sam Francis (the only thing I ever told him that he quoted and made his own — truly flattering) that conspiracy theories along the lines of the Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, Illuminati and Rothschild ones actually give reason for optimism. If they were true, all that would be necessary to set the world right regarding all of the above “conspiracies” would be for someone to call the police at the right moment and have the conspirators arrested. Presto! All problems solved! Just nip the whole matter in the bud by arresting the bad guys!
Alas, life isn’t so easy.
The Rothschilds are not the masterminds of a Jewish conspiracy.
Nor is it necessary that there be a hidden hand directing Jewish depredations against Europeans.
The average Jew does not need to be directed and micromanaged by the Learned Elders of Zion.
Jews are perfectly capable on an individual basis of knowing what needs to be done for their community to flourish and triumph. They know it as easily as many of our readers know what things benefit, and what things hurt, the White Christian European community.
Jews instinctively fear and feel threatened by nationalistic, particularistic societies.
They know that when societies enjoy a robust, patriotic self-confidence, there is little scope for Jewish advancement and control.
Elizabethan England, Renaissance Florence, Periclean Athens and Siglo de Oro Spain are all examples of societies in which by definition the scope of Jewish activity in commerce, culture and government would necessarily be dramatically confined.
In any such society the chances that there would be, for instance, two foreign-born Jews in one generation serving as Secretary of State and controlling foreign policy (I am referring, of course, to Henry Kissinger and Madeline Albright) would be zero. In any of these four examples of patriotic, self-confident societies the Kissingers and the Albrights would have as little chance to rise to control of the country’s foreign policy as a Scottish Presbyterian or Spanish Catholic would of taking charge of the Foreign Office of the State of Israel.
The Kissingers and Albrights would ineluctably be squeezed out and marginalized. Instead of directing foreign policy of the entire nation, they would be pressing pants in a laundry—just as their coreligionist Leon Trotsky did in Brooklyn until the Russian Revolution opened up vast and new opportunities to him and others similarly situated not available to them in the bad old days of pre-war Europe.
No one needs to explain to Kissinger or Albright or to any Jew living, say, in the small town South what policies endanger Jews and their interests and what policies benefit them.
Jews favor multi-ethnic, divided, demoralized, degenerate societies as instinctively as bees build beehives.
And this is the core of the problem.
While, contrary to the wildest anti-Semitic theorists, there do exist “civilized Jews” (Paul Gottfried comes to mind immediately), they necessarily are the exceptions.
Jews have existed and persisted as a distinct, separate racial, religious and cultural people through two millennia of dispersion among the “Gentiles” (from the Latin translation of goyim, the often derogatory Hebrew phrase) not by merely being a people who dwell apart or remain separate but by being at all times adversarial to any society in which they live. (I do not use “people who dwell apart” in any sense as a slap at Kevin MacDonald’s title of that phrase which necessarily was moderate. In fact, a prominent aspect of MacDonald’s work is that Jews have formed a hostile elite whenever they have had the opportunity.)
The only way for a dispersed minority to survive for two millennia under the circumstances in which the Jews found themselves is to be hostile and adversarial to the host society.
Merely being different would not suffice, just as it did not suffice in the case of the French Huguenots who came to South Carolina in the 1600s.
The Huguenots were Protestant but they still remained distinct and hostile in every way toward their Anglican, Anglo-Saxon neighbors.
While they were non-Catholics like the Anglicans, their Protestantism was radically different from that of the established church in the colony. They regarded the Church of England as little different from and little better than the Church of Rome. They had their own language. They inherited the ingrained hostility that the French and English had shared for each other for centuries. They were only in South Carolina because they had no other place to go.
And there were significant problems for the colony in the friction between Presbyterian Frenchmen and Anglican Englishmen.
The Huguenots settled in their own towns and communities where they tried to preserve their own language, culture and religion.
The English resented this and feared their French neighbors as potentially disloyal.
The colonial legislature had passed laws to squelch and suppress the French, banning their language from public usage and ordering them to adopt an Anglican prayer book and to conform to the established church.
The French undoubtedly resented this.
And so the friction went on…
But only for several generations.
Today in South Carolina the French Huguenots have disappeared. They are remembered only in peculiar French names like my father’s first name “Bonneau” and my mother’s middle name of “Legare.”
And the reason the French have disappeared in South Carolina is that for all the denominational, national, linguistic and cultural friction, at heart the French Huguenot did not hate his neighbor.
His religion did not mandate and encourage him to lie awake at night mentally sticking Voodoo pins into a doll of the Anglican Anglo-Saxon next door.
While separate from the English and while separated from the English by denomination, nationality, language and culture, the French Huguenot in South Carolina was not actively hostile, hateful and adversarial toward his neighbors.
And so within a few generations use of the French language was dying out, many of the French Huguenots had been absorbed into the Anglican Church and their descendants were intermarrying with the English boys and girls in the vicinity.
No. To survive for millennia as a small minority scattered “amongst the nations” mere separation is not enough.
Such remarkable survival requires hatred, hostility — in short an attitude toward society that is absolutely adversarial at all times and remains so even in the face of non-discriminatory and even amicable treatment.
The problems in the relations between our people and our society on the one hand and the Jewish community and its society on the other do not arise from and are not confined to the role of the Rothschild Banks or a tight little committee of rabbis making up the Learned Elders of Zion.
They are warp and woof of the Jewish personality itself.
The problems have existed back to the times of Antiquity. They predate Christianity.
The friction would exist if Europeans had never converted to Christianity and even if Christianity had never existed and indeed would probably have been all the sharper, as is seen if one looks at the extraordinarily vicious massacres perpetrated by the Jews and the Greeks on each other in pre-Christian times.
The friction and the problems arise from the normal, natural and healthy competition and struggle of peoples against each other for resources, space and survival.
It was a stroke of genius for the Jews to inject into this natural evolutionary competition a false moral issue of “hate” or “discrimination.”
It is no more hateful or discriminatory for me as the descendant of English and French colonists who came to America in the 1600s to resent the fact that two alien-born Jews usurped the office of Secretary of State in my county in my lifetime than it would be “hate” for Israelis to be outraged if I demanded that some Scottish Presbyterian be made Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel.
In my garden at the moment that I am writing this little essay two plants are contending for mastery. The Wandering Jew (to use the old, politically incorrect word for what the nursery saleswoman informed me is now called “Purple Heart”) is battling for space with the Rabbit’s Ears. It is a ruthless, cruel fight with each plant species seeking to smother and choke the other.
This is not because the Wandering Jew and the Rabbit’s Ear’s plants are evil, immoral or hateful.
It’s the fact that they are responding to the commands of their genes, the laws of nature.
Last weekend I, as the owner of the garden, embarked upon a severe pruning of the Rabbit’s Ears which were winning the battle.
Not because I think the Rabbit’s Ears are anti-Semitic, morally bad and deserving of punishment but because I — for my own selfish human pleasure as a member of my own species of life with my own agenda — want to preserve the attractive contrast between the two swaths of silvery-green Rabbit’s Ears and purple Wandering Jew.
Conspiracy theories carried to unrealistic extremes — as I believe characterizes the claims about the Rothschilds — distract us from the obvious, confuse our people about what must be done for us to survive and triumph in a society natural to our own natures, and diminish our credibility.
One doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to see the problems created by Jewish influence in our society. These problems are right in front of our eyes. They are conspicuous in groups like AIPAC and cause dramatic and unconcealed tragedies as in the 9/11 attack made upon us as “blow back” (Ron Paul’s term) from the Arabs who have sustained the pain caused by the kidnapping of our foreign policy by the American Jewish community.
Its a falsehood to assume that the existence of Israel "caused" their societies to become less democratic.
OIL!
Depression followed by global war (including in North Africa, Middle East).
Cold War.
Please don't revise history to blame the existence of Israel for everyone's problems. Its irresponsible.
Israel is still very small geographically and proportionally in population.
The "Charles Keating" above, is engaging in sickeningly malevolent and false anti-semitism. Its frankly lame.
Who knows if that is really Charles, but it is somebody.
The simplest way to get rid of the "Israel problem" is to establish diplomatic relations.
Ricjard Witty wrote: "Israel is still very small geographically and proportionally in population."
Witty –
What an absurd effort at excuse-making! Israel may be the size of New Jersey, but it has the fourth largest military in the world, is the top (by far recipient) of financial and military aid from the No. 1 superpower in the world, and received blanket diplomatic protection from that same superpower whenver the international community attempts to hold it accountable for any of its actions. To try to minimize the regional and international significance of Israel because of its small size is utterly disingenuous; this is no ordinary small country.
I agree Israel shouldn't be blamed for all problems, but the truly extraordinary support that it receives from the United States government and from the world Jewish community has made Israel infinitely more powerful and consequential than its size would suggest. The direct and indorect result of that power deserves and demands scrutiny, not excuses.
To clarify, I shouldhave said that Israel is the fourth strongest military power, not that it has the fourth largest military. The 300 or so nuclar warheads more than make up for any troop disparities with larger, less developed countries.
Israel deserves accurate and non-prejudicial scrutiny, as does ever party in every relationship.
From World Audit Org website:
Overall Democracy:
Finland: 1
USA: 15
Israel: 31
Free Press:
Finland: 1
USA: 11
Israel: 36
Corruption:
Finland: 1
USA: 17
Israel: 25
Political Rights:
usa: 15
Israel: 31
Finland: 1
Civil Liberties
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada,Chile, Costa Rica,Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia. Finland, France,Germany,Hungary,Ireland,Italy,Lithunia, Nethelands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,Taiwan, USA, UK, Uraguay: 1
Israel, South Korea, Mauritius, Mongolia, Panama,Romania,Serbia, South Africa,Trinidad & Tobago, Ukraine : 2
THE LEADERS
The top nations in this survey, with little to choose between them, remain: Finland (1), Denmark (2), Sweden (3), New Zealand (4), Switzerland (5), Netherlands (6), Norway (7). Looking back to the turn of the millennium, indeed to our founding in 1997 eleven years ago, it was even then these same countries in a slightly different arrangement. Congratulations to the peoples and governments of all those enlightened countries. The very specific democratic criteria set out above are amply demonstrated in all of them. For most people who have ever visited them, these 'stats' will reflect the anecdotal experience of being there. They are mature democracies – the real thing. Visitors may indeed look on them as somewhere perhaps enviable for what they have achieved. Given their consistency of excellence they are because they exist perhaps, the very models that the world needs.
Remarkably, and speaking to consistency, the top 25 nations in this survey retain their exact positions from our last 2007 audit. Then comes a dramatic plunge for disgraced Latvia from co-equal 27th down to 39, and out of the First Division to the Third. This was a matter of a drop in political rights due to a series of corruption-related scandals implicating high-level government officials.
The British Commonwealth scores well in Division 1, with New Zealand (4), Canada (8), Australia and United Kingdom jointly on (9).
The top Africans are Mauritius (32) and Ghana (35), which have passed South Africa (40) and Botswana (41), with Namibia at (43).
Leading East Asia are Japan (30), South Korea (32), Taiwan (38).
South and South East Asia has India up front at (47), Singapore (74) moving up from 77, Malaysia (82). Philippines (85) has dropped 17 places from (68), due to Political Rights being marked down as a result of serious high level corruption allegations, the pardon of former President Estrada, and a spike in political killings in the run-up to the 2007 legislative elections.
Latin America has Chile (21) in the lead, with Uruguay hot on their heels at (22), Costa Rica (25) and Panama (37), all of these classed as full democracies.
North America reads: Canada (8), USA (15) and Mexico (63).
Europe accounts for twenty three of the twenty nine in Division 1; and in Division 2, two out of eight
SOME SIGNIFICANT POINTERS
Of the European Union’s twenty seven members, Luxemburg, Malta and Cyprus are beneath the one million population threshold for this survey. With the exception of Romania (50), in the Third Division and Bulgaria in the Second at (36), they are all in the first Division.
Israel (31), whatever it may or may not do to its near neighbours, has in terms of its own democratic criteria justified remaining in the second division. The prime minister here was openly the subject of a criminal investigation, which is an event that everyone knows just, would not happen in a non-democratic nation. In the context of Israel's neighbours and regional adversaries excluding the beleaguered Palestinians, the Jordanians are at (81), Egypt (100), Saudi Arabia (119), Iraq (132). Syria is (138) as is also Iran.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Ordinary non-Jewish Americans look at Israel and its history, and see or understand the following things.
1) Israel has been at war with one or more of its neighbors for 60 years.
2) Israel has declared itself a threatened victim of this neighborhood for 60 years; however, it wasn't the Arab population that threatened Jewish existence in WWII.
3) Israel refuses to write a Constitution, so it remains a democracy in the NYT's & WaPo’s mind only.
4) Israel refuses to declare its own borders; instead it continually wants more land.
5) Israel has received more money from US taxpayers — regular US taxpayer receipts, not the Diaspora, without any accounting of this expenditure to the American people — than Las Vegas has grossed in the same time period.
6) A small group of men in Dubai created a world-class metropolis and world financial center out of an empty sandbox much smaller than Israel within 30 years. And with far less start-up money. Israel, with its superior Jewish brainpower, couldn't. Or wouldn't.
As for Armageddon and starting WW III, Israel needs to ask itself, now before its too late, who does it want as an enemy? Iran, or 2/3 of the American people? Because if it does bomb Iran, as a commenter on this board said yesterday, there will be no more sympathy for Israel, and US Jewry will not only be blamed for not speaking out, as Americans, in America’s national interests (Mondoweiss and Tony Karon /class blogs excepted), but shunned.
If you want to call that anti-semitism, be my guest. But it isn't. It will be a patriotic and survival reaction to an actual event (not an innate aversion to a group) that could have been averted with vociferous complaints by US Jewry, and the various Israeli lobbies. Seventy percent of the American people right now do not want war with Iran.
Ordinary non-Jewish Americans do not believe that religions trump the national interest or the Constitution. Neither do they believe that a foreign country's interests has dominion over our fate to our detriment. And they have been inculcated in this since birth. So Israel and US Jewry plays with this at their peril.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Why Finland is number one of the nations in quality of domestic life:
link to washingtonpost.com
I agree with your Arabist as to the pernicious effect which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has had on Arab countries.
The Arabs/Muslims have been painted as stupid and evil and they have responded with anger and hate. Anger and hate are the food of dictatorships.
I'm over 70 and have watched and understood this history since I was old enough to pay attention to what is going on … about 1960.
"The "Charles Keating" above, is engaging in sickeningly malevolent and false anti-semitism. Its frankly lame."
What was objectionable about the post? Basically the post just stated your opinions in a matter-of-fact way. We went through the issue in another post, and for you it is just a matter of universalism versus isolationism.
What you and Phil call universalism is beneficial to Jews at the expense of traditional Americans, and there is no way around that. It doesn't benefit me to have half of the world coming to the U.S, and a foreign elite breaking down the culture and institutions of the majority for their own benefit. Who are you kidding? Do you really think that the situation can be controlled forever?
"Why Finland is number one of the nations in quality of domestic life…"
Charles, I just returned from two weeks in Finland, and have been there many times visiting my wife's family. Finland is a nice country, but I disagree with much in the article.
The nation has changed quite a bit over the years since I first visited, and much of the change is not for the better.
I don't find Finns to be particularly free-thinking or socially free. The average American still has a better economic situation. Finnish society divides starkly along class lines in ways that the writer doesn't seem to notice, or want to admit. And the population has often been tightly ruled by the elites- think Kekkonen-and that is probably the allure of the Finnish example to many.
My guess is that the people who write these articles are Marxists wanting to hold up a welfare state as an example of success, and who only visit Helsinki and a few other larger cities. Otherwise they would admit that it is homogeneity that is the strength of Finland if they choose to be honest at all.
From healthcare on down, the Finnish example is never quite presented as it really is.
Also, it is dishonest to use an example of one tycoon who is married to a teacher to say that Finland's greater ties to the world economy in the last decade have not visibly changed the nation. The larger cities are now full of third-world immigrants and Russian mobsters, and all of the problems and corruption that they bring.
My guess is that Finland has pretty much lost what allowed it to build a strong and special society, and will go the way of Holland, France, or any other multi-ethnic, socialist European nation over time. Isn't it great when universalism triumphs over parochialism and isolationism?
Holy shit Charles Keating!
I have to add to that…
Simply put, we are on our way to one earth, and one multicultural first world and then ethnic bantustans in the 3rd world.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Phil,
That June post you did on Tal Becker was one of my favorites for your description of him and what he stood for. I've known a couple of Israelis like that (in NYC) and fail to understand how their polar opposites hold the reins in Tel Aviv. Could say the exact same about US leadership.
Let's hope that as our leadership changes, so does Israel's.
__________________________________________________________________________________
I am curious about the Arabist who refers to the corruption of Farouk's Egypt as "parliamentary democracy." Yes the takeover by Nasser was really a middle-class officers' coup, not a revolution, but Egypt before Nasser was an incredibly unfair place, with the tiny elite lording it over the masses. For about ten years Nasser worked to change all that. Maybe fifteen.
Egypt today and for the last 30 years has been barreling back to plutocracy, this time with military rule. But I really wonder if Egypt pre-Nasser was a place we would sincerely call a democracy. A democracy for the rich, perhaps.
OTOH the Arabist may very well be an old friend of mine, someone who cares about Egypt at least, and can view Arab intellectuals as human beings with a rich culture. Some people are reactionaries even if Arabists. If it is indeed that old friend, he does know more about the history of Egypt than I do. He is the one who gave me the phrase "middle class coup" to replace "revolution" when describing Nasser & 1952. And yet I suspect him of very reactionary tendencies and a real contempt for any project to better the lives of the poor. But your Arabist may not be the person I am thinking of.
"This was a convulsive period in history. In 1609 there were 21 million Germans. By the time they signed the treaty of Westphalia in 1648 there were 9 or 10 million Germans. Half the population, destroyed because of the rise of nationalism."
That somehow suggests the cause of war was the rise of nationalism, which is a strange idea. Below the surface of a religious war, it is about power. People tended to have the faith of their masters.
Cuius regio, eius religio:
link to en.wikipedia.org
The usual number is one third of the population, although there are regional difference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War
If you think the Rothschilds wealth and power is exagerated check out the Rothschilds
archive web site and do some research…
here is a link that will help:
link to rothschildarchive.org
this focuses on Edmund De Rothschild
and lists his loans to various governments for various vital economic needs.
hit on the link: "guide"
"Otherwise they would admit that it is homogeneity that is the strength of Finland if they choose to be honest at all."–Todd
I agree; I guess that is also the main reason why the Scandavian countries are so Tier 1. I also agree with your prognosis.
No other family could match the wealth of the Rothschilds in the 19th Century. See Appendix 1, The House Of Rothschild, Niall Ferguson at p 482. Not even the Saudi royal family has a comparable share of the world's resources today.
Phil, what did your smart Arabist friend say about the principle of the Law Of Return? Did he say, "if a Jew born in America has the right to immigrate to his or her homeland, a Palestinian born in a refugee camp should have the right to return to Palestine, no?"
In context, according to a June 2003 survey of Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan and Lebanon, only 10% of those surveyed stated that they would become residents of Israel if given a choice.
And what did your smart Arabist say about sharing Jerusalem?
Ah, the plants contending for domination in your garden. I see it clearly now. You are a lunatic
Re Todd and keating on Finland and it's place in the world. I too have spent lengthy periods of time in Finland recently and would like to take an issue with your dismissal of their place in the hierarchy of "the enlightened". I believe you are correct in ascribing some of the great positives ascribed to Finland to the homogeneity of its population (as well as to its relatively small size – a characteristic shared with the other No. 1 countries). Yes, there is a "ruling class' that is mostly hidden to the foreigner. But that ruling class is descended from another scandinavian society (the Swedes) so it's values are rather similar to those of the native Finns. Consequently, those values are shared by most citizens, a bit more or a bit less priviledged. Key to these values in my experience, is a certain humility – vis-a-vis their place in the world (a country of a mere 5 million located way north), a certain frowning on personal ambition gone out of wack (or anything else out of wack), and a profound love and commitment to the land on which they live – something every resident of Finland – even after a relatively short visit – comes to appreciate instinctively. Even the richest, most landed member of society tinkers with building something on weekends. It is a society that is the opposite of mid eastern and far eastern societies in terms of eschewing ostantatioussness. Individuals can "pull rank" (and they do) in other, less visible ways. And for being less visible, it is less objectionable. All we are saying here really is that no, Finland is not a Kibbutz, and yes, they are pstill part of the human condition, which has had bult-in inequities from time immemorial. In Finland these inequities are simply less offensive for being a bit underground.
Finally, there is a trait the Finns have that IMO is absolutely essential to the flourishing of a "progressive" (if not an always democratic) societies, and that is a certain passivity of nature (ie, the opposite of Americans, israelis and french, to name a few). It is only the somewhat passive who find it possible to tolerate the built-in differences of heritage in a society. Only the somewhat-passive who can reach consensus across fairly substantial barriers of history and class. Only the somewhat-passive who can shrug off the injustice of continued stratification of society, personal limitations, challenging weather and the sting of past conquests by outsiders. It's what makes the Finns a tad dull but mostly lovable for their resourcefulness, good nature, stoicism and easy going manners. They know not enough arrogance to despise foreigners or over-exalt in over-achievers.
The Finns to me are the epitomy of the rhythms of everyday life made manifest in the entire culture. Finland is what a society without hubris looks like. It's what makes the practice of democracy natural to them and what makes them some of the best workers/employees any company -large or small – would love to have 9give or take that predilection for lengthy vacations. Be that we Americans could all learn from them on that score). And we all love them for their naturalness, no matter that it comes in a somewhat dour package (it's after all a country iced over much of the year).
Yet, it is also that same trait I call "passivity" which represents the great danger to the Finns currently. As Todd mentioned (and keating surely agrees), bit by bit, the Russians – a people -on the whole – far in both temperament and history from the Finns – are moving in. They are buying land, building mansions, channeling commerce, and yes, spreading hubris and general disaffection with the universe – all stated with great eloquence and total disregard for anyone's sensitivity – everywhere they go. And with the Russians comes the corruption that money scattered every which way can bring. I fear for the Finns – seeing that long long border they share with Russia, and knowing something of the forces and inequities and long track record of bitterness now roiling the Russian society, as well as their built-in sense of entitlement (a trait shared with the jews perhaps?). Moody giants emerging from a centuries of slumber always scared me – whether in fairy tales or reality.
Alas, the poor Finns know not what awaits them, because geography is destiny and the Russian ain't no Scandinavian (except for the Siberians), and Finns can barely fathom the depths of mal-adjustment and mean temper with which others can be cursed. I happen to think the Finns could use a few more jews (who'll take on the russians with gusto) just as israel could use another million Finns (best thing that could happen to israel, IMHO…..not that Finland could spare so many…alas).
Sorry for the lengthy off-topic discourse on the Finns. Perhaps soon I'll take on a side-by-side contrast of the Finn vs the arab. Would explain a lot, I suspect.
"Alas, the poor Finns know not what awaits them, because geography is destiny and the Russian ain't no Scandinavian (except for the Siberians), and Finns can barely fathom the depths of mal-adjustment and mean temper with which others can be cursed. I happen to think the Finns could use a few more jews (who'll take on the russians with gusto) just as israel could use another million Finns (best thing that could happen to israel, IMHO…..not that Finland could spare so many…alas)."
I don't think that the Finns need Jews doing for them what they've done for Americans.
The "passivity" towards Russians is due to corruption at the top, not from a lack of dissatisfaction or willingness to act from the bottom. Laws were recently changed allowing Russians/foreigners to buy land in Finland, and that is surely a sign of corruption rather than democracy or passivity.
The situation in Finland in regards to Russians and foreigners is kind of like the situation in the U.S. where legal and illegal immigration and special minority status are despised by most, but the general population fears its brutal and corrupt rulers too much to do anything.
Also, it isn't just Russians who are changing the face of Finland. The third-world immigrants who are being forced on the population are just one step in destroying yet another nation where the immigrants have no business being.
Finand is a bit unique among the Scandinavian nations. There is a Swedish influence among the elites, but Finns are not Swedes. Kekkonen was not a Finnish-Swede. There is something of a lingering Russian influence, too. But Finns are still Finns.
The ruling class in Finland is not hidden at all. Everyone knows who the powerful and influential are, as their faces and parties are plastered on every magazine in the nation, and their yearly galas are televised. The policies of the elites may not be open to public scrutiny or influence, but in such a small country, they are well-known.
And don't lump Israelis in with Americans. I've spent lots of time in both Israel and Finland, and I can relate to Finns as westerners Protestants and Europeans, but Israelis may as well be Chinamen. There is no kinship or shared culture, traits or real concerns between Americans and Israelis. It's mostly artificial, imagined and forced.
Everything else about naivity and rhythms of life makes no sense, and comes off as condescending towards the Finns-who have accomplished far more on their own against tremendous odds than the Israelis have with massive outside help facing very little in the way of odds of outcome.
This is a topic that should be discussed more, considering Finland's current high ranking among the nations in so many areas. And honestly. I guess that's too much to ask of our MSM.
'Sheldon Adelson and Ari Fleischer and Doug Feith, marching off into history. Who will take them on? Can the WASPs regroup? (I laughed).'
That laugh is emblematic of the contempt we all feel for the weak, disposessed scions of the strongest nation on earth. History doesn't engender confidence that people with clout (members of US elites – media, govt, church) will finally stand on their hind legs, clear their throats and finally tell it like it is, but then history isn't now. I agree with Phil that scales are falling from thousands of eyes across America on this issue, driven by the direness of the straits we find ourselves in, but I'm agnostic as to whether this is good or bad news, especially for Jews.
In the absence of an elite revolt, and prevented by Lobby control and/or intimidation of the media from making any sort of public splash, the only way for people to take Adelson or Feith on is via the Cindy Sheehan/Adalah approach.
Get some members of the Iraqi vets group against the war – amputees welcome. Some mothers of dead soldiers. A few hardy souls with big colour pics of exploded Iraqi children, their limbs held together by distraught parents. Camp out front of the office or the condo; dress soberly, ensure your behaviour is exemplary and then get good video coverage of every entry and exit, which should be accompanied by a tightly scripted series of clear questions for our hero. You should manage at least 2 or 3 between portico and limo.
'We need a superreligion now, when the religions are fighting one another, well above the nations.'
No, not another religion and no more nationalism either. Remember after 911 all the handwringing about how 'they' with their religious fanaticism, were so much more committed than us, and far less decadent. Our freedoms, it was implied, had eaten into our strength, and undermined our capacity to protect ourselves. These freedoms – women's rights, athiesm, etc – had robbed us of the vigour that informed less developed societies.
Lots of commentators made this lament, which sat awkwardly with the cries they made in alternate columns for us to fight tooth and nail against the barbarians, in order to protect those same freedoms that had hobbled us!! I suppose confusion is excusable in such circumstances.
To me, the form this super-awareness needs to take is not religious at all. The achievements of our scientific civilisation are, to most inhabitants of this planet, frightening. Taken to their logical conclusions, they indicate that we are all hurtling thru the cosmos at 900 mph, orbiting a dying star on a planet with a molten core, and that nothing, not even the sun rising in the morning, can be taken for granted.
Such uncertainty is a recipe for instability, which is why such knowledge is shunned, even throughout much of the civilisation that created it. It's hard to draw strength from uncertainty, conviction out of doubt.
But embracing that uncertainty, farewelling the Sky Gods once and for all, making peace with the idea that we really are alone and that if nothing else can save us if we can't save ourselves – it's not very comforting and unsexy to boot, but it's the only way we'll be able to rise above the man-made divisions that bedevil us. It would mark our transition from a dangerously unstable human adolescence into a more mature state where we take responsibility for all our actions, rather than ascribing things to a supernatural agency, the ultimate cop-out.
Sermon over.
"No, not another religion and no more nationalism either."
I agree, Glen. I just don't think that people from around the world can be thrown together into what amounts to work-camps for the cheapest bidder, and live happily or peacefully.
I don't believe that race and ethnicity are man-made divisions, and I think it is up for debate whether or not culture is.
There has to be some negative consequences from overturning culture, traditions, and demographics on a whim.
Surely there has to be a middle-ground between oppressive nationalism and oppressive cosmopolitanism, where ethnicity, traditions and culture are respected, and average people have a choice in what they want to give up, and who they want to allow into their nation.
'I don't believe that race and ethnicity are man-made divisions,'
Not directly, not consciously, though we all come from the same stock initially and variations are due to migrating populations becoming different (genetic drift) over time. The biology is out of our hands I suppose but the history of humna movement involved human decisions. One thing that strikes me is that the things we share, right down to our physical structure, far outweigh the things that differ.
'and I think it is up for debate whether or not culture is.'
Culture is what differentiates us and it is an overlay, a relatively recent one in the scheme of our shared eveolution. I can't get interested in debates about which culture is best, or why this or that one can be bombed back to the Stone Age. Any thought system which makes such distinctions is racist at base. The physical differences that exist are literally skin deep, and mental ones are even more shallow than that.
All my experience and whatever native common sense I possess tells me that people must be considered as individuals, not as classes of any kind. The ratios of good or bad people within and between groups remain remarkably constant over time.
'Surely there has to be a middle-ground between oppressive nationalism and oppressive cosmopolitanism, where ethnicity, traditions and culture are respected, and average people have a choice in what they want to give up, and who they want to allow into their nation.'
I'm with you right up to that last clause, which for me would need to clarify on which grounds you would allow or reject applications for entry. For me, the tests would be applied to individuals regardless of where they hail from. You couldn't for example say 'no Muslims'.
I'm arguing against multiculturalism and change for the sake of change, rather than stating that one culture is better than another.
I don't hold birth or religion against anyone, but I would rather live in a society with a strong dominant culture and population, as the U.S. was throughout much of its history.
It is possible for a nation's elites to remain loyal to the core population, traditions and culture, while remaining open to the outside world. I would imagine that an elite that turns on the traditional population wouldn't remain an elite class for long, and vice-versa.
Yeah, this a bitch as far as the future entails. But, there's no question demographically, the western european portion of the USA will be a minority by 2050–it's already a minority in some key places. Europe has its own similar problem. I guess, when the (let's face it) whites become a minority, we will all get to see
what high ethical standards the formerly less powerfull institute–history shows it will be not too good.