A couple data points:
Agreed. An important story. I've written here often that the Christian right is waning as a force in our politics, even as the blue-state media continue to batten on to it as the great ogre.
Last night on NBC Nightly News they did a report on the new "melting pot," saying that by 2050 whites will make up only 46 percent of the population. Boo hoo! The piece described polyglot students in our schools from 37 nations, including Afghanistan, Guatemala, Canada, UAE, and Mali; and it offered itself as a "snapshot of the melting pot." A Princeton professor was quoted saying that a "multiracial society' is a source of strength, vibrancy. There was an implication in the piece that all these folks should take on American ways.
Agreed. Identity politics are over, the melting pot is back. My predictable comment is Donde les Jews? The assimilationist forces in all these reports are bearing down on Jewish life. Just a fact: with 62 percent of Jews under 35 marrying out. It's a giant crisis in Jewish life, as it seems to threaten "Jewish continuity," to use the new buzz word. And politically, of course, Jews sustain the Israel lobby. Which must go unmentioned even as it quakes and trembles thru the presidential election. Our journalism's broken on that issue.
If only it were true that identity politics,
the heart and soul of the Democratic Party,
were over! In fact, the fetishization of
ethnic/religious/racial identity is encouraged by the leftwing elite culture
(the schools, the universities, the media,etc); only for white Christians is an
expression of cultural pride deemed, at best, infra dig, or, at worst, proof of pathology. Of course, the most ethnocentric, least assimilationist group,
ce sont les juifs.
Its not new.
The Jewish vote is no longer automatically Dem. Only 8 percent of Jewish voters voted for Nixon. Now polls show that 39 percent of the Jewish vote will go to McCain. Alan Dershowitz supports Obama(check Jpost).
I don't see how the Jews are the least assimilated. Hollywood? Media? Show-biz? American Jews have contributed so much to American culture, entertainment, and literature.
I think those that are against gay rights and reproductive rights are the least assimilated. Because of the natural liberal stance of Jewish leaders, they are advocates for these causes, hence progressive. Unfortunatly, Phil has waged war on them because he thinks that the idea which they support, the idea that the Jews should have a state for refuge, is a corrupt idea.
"…the idea that the Jews should have a state for refuge"
refuge from what?
"The Jews" is much too generalistic a term. Not all people of Jewish persuasion are interested in being lumped in with the racist Zionist project. In the interest of respecting them, and in the interest of honesty, please speak only of Zionist Jews when speaking of a "Jewish state."
Why would anyone be against assimilation unless he or she believed
they were superior?
What group has ever been net superior?
We are not superior to anybody people to people Anaon. But my dogs shit, is superior to you and most of the rest of the intellects on this blog.
"Agreed. Identity politics are over, the melting pot is back. "
Obama's whole campaign is about identity politics! The melting pot has never been a reality, and the whole idea has always been cover for those who want cheap imported labor or demographic change. If there had ever been a melting pot, there would be no ethnic America.
"Obama's whole campaign is about identity politics!"
I think you may be reading into Obama's campaign your own response to seeing a black candidate.
Alana, why don't you just come out and say that you think I'm a racist? That would be better than failing at reading my mind. Anyone with a functioning brain and a shred of honesty knows that Obama's identity is a HUGE part of his campaign an appeal. Don't be stupid!
Alana, why don't you just come out and say that you think I'm a racist? That would be better than failing at reading my mind. Anyone with a functioning brain and a shred of honesty knows that Obama's identity is a HUGE part of his campaign an appeal. Don't be stupid!
I still have a problem with a specific Jewish assimilation versus a general Cultural assimilation
It creates a continuity with the larger context of Jewish history you should be really more careful about. It's a pity you can't read Theodor Lessing's Jewish Self-hate/Der Juedische Selbsthass. Not because of its theoretical frame, but because of the five excellent portraits of over-assimilated German or Austrian Jews. You meet e.g. Arthur Trebitsch, one of the most rabid antisemites in Austria. Trebitsch influenced Hitler. And the ardent German nationalist Maximilian Harden …
Oh, I forgot the most important:
Theodor Lessing's Jewish Self-hate/Der Juedische Selbsthass, 1930
It has been reprinted over here.
I'll shut up again for a while: But aren't the neoconservatives perfectly assimilated American's, so assimilated in fact that they can dictate its wars. That is not something you do as a not-assimilated member of any society. AIPAC is deeply assimilated to the US power elites.
at higginslads
"refuge from what?"
maybe you should open a history book once in a while?
"Not all people of Jewish persuasion are interested in being lumped in with the racist Zionist project."
Is Japan a racist project? Is Sweden? The enemies of the Jews attacked anybody connected to Judaism and the ancient Hebrews. Your grandma was Jewish, dead. You converted to Judaism, dead. Born Jewish, dead. Your parents are Jewish, but don't go to shul at all, dead. Israel is a refuge to all those who are targets of antisemitism. those Jews that don't ask for this refuge, don't have to be there.
Sure SOG is eating too much of his dog's shit. He always tells us about the superior quality of it.
Michael Weis,
Stop the nonsense. Are you honestly trying to compare events of generations ago to today? Grow up, stop being scared, and enjoy your privileges. The Palestinians are the ones who need refuge now, not you or "the Jews."
Incidentally, the Zionist project for a "homeland for the Jewish people" was started well before the atrocities of WWII, and had little to do with "refuge" for oppressed Jewish people.
"The Jews might have had Uganda, Madagascar, and other places for the establishment of a Jewish Fatherland, but they wanted absolutely nothing except Palestine, not because the Dead Sea water by evaporation can produce five trillion dollars of metaloids and powdered metals; not because the sub-soil of Palestine contains twenty times more petroleum than all the combined reserves of the two Americas; but because Palestine is the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa, because Palestine constitutes the veritable center of world political power, the strategic center for world control." -Nahum Goldman, President, World Jewish Congress
Your scare tactics with regard to Jewish tragedies of bygone eras won't get far with me. The suffering of people of a Jewish persuasion isn't any more or less important than the suffering of any other group of people throughout history, and should not receive any more or less attention. The tragedies should be properly condemned, and we should move on and help the next generation of people who are being oppressed, in this case the Palestinians, among others. Why not use your status and privilege as a Jewish person to help others who are being oppressed in your name, or do you feel that they are not worthy of your voice?
"The Palestinians are the ones who need refuge now"
I know, that is why I support a Palestinian state in most of the West Bank and all of Gaza with negotiations on Jerusalem and possible land transfer from Israel proper to a Palestinian state to off set the settlements.
"started well before the atrocities of WWII, and had little to do with "refuge" for oppressed Jewish people. "
The Jewish people were oppressed long before WW2. Seriously, open a history book once in a while.
And about the Goldman quote, I don't know if it's true, but Palestine is pretty worthless. How is it " the veritable center of world political power, the strategic center for world control"? Tell me, how is it? There wasn't a independent state there for 2000 years. Trade routs don't go through it. They go through the Egyptian canal and Istanbul. It doesn't have petroleum. If it did have oil, why would it invest so much in alternative energies?
The suffering of the Jewish people isn't more worthy of attention. They are all worthy of all people's attention. The problem is that no one cared about the Jew's suffering and the suffering of others such as Darfur and Rwanda. Have you ever been to a Darfur rally. Have you written to your representatives about the suffering of others, not just those of the Palestinians.
In my Israeli and Jewish circles in the US and Israel, I fight for the peace process. It doesn't mean that Israel doesn't have a right to exist or to defend itself from organizations that sole purpose is to destroy – destroy Israel and the Jews, just read the Hamas charter.
The world didn't care about the suffering of others. But ever since the Holocaust, the world has been fixated on the Jews while ignoring the suffering of others. The world let another "6 million" die while putting the Jews under the microscope. In 1948, Israelis who surrendered to their enemies were killed on the spot. The Palestinians didn't offer any alternative to the partition plan (except letting their neighborhood arab dictators take over like they did) and went to war and lost.
"The Jewish people were oppressed long before WW2. Seriously, open a history book once in a while."
Whose history book?
The point is that the early Zionist leaders who sought a "Jewish homeland" weren't as interested in saving the Jews from persecution as many have been led to believe.
"In 1948, Israelis who surrendered to their enemies were killed on the spot. The Palestinians didn't offer any alternative to the partition plan (except letting their neighborhood arab dictators take over like they did) and went to war and lost."
What the hell are you talking about? You're all over the place in attempting to defend Zionist atrocities and simultaneously not come across as a Jewish supremacist. It doesn't work.
In this work, the author attempts to prove that the Jews now living in Israel and other places in the world are not at all descendants of the ancient people who inhabited the Kingdom of Judea during the First and Second Temple period. Their origins, according to him, are in varied peoples that converted to Judaism during the course of history, in different corners of the Mediterranean Basin and the adjacent regions. Not only are the North African Jews for the most part descendants of pagans who converted to Judaism, but so are the Jews of Yemen (remnants of the Himyar Kingdom in the Arab Peninsula, who converted to Judaism in the fourth century) and the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe (refugees from the Kingdom of the Khazars, who converted in the eighth century).
Unlike other "new historians" who have tried to undermine the assumptions of Zionist historiography, Sand does not content himself with going back to 1948 or to the beginnings of Zionism, but rather goes back thousands of years. He tries to prove that the Jewish people never existed as a "nation-race" with a common origin, but rather is a colorful mix of groups that at various stages in history adopted the Jewish religion. He argues that for a number of Zionist ideologues, the mythical perception of the Jews as an ancient people led to truly racist thinking: "There were times when if anyone argued that the Jews belong to a people that has gentile origins, he would be classified as an anti-Semite on the spot. Today, if anyone dares to suggest that those who are considered Jews in the world … have never constituted and still do not constitute a people or a nation – he is immediately condemned as a hater of Israel."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/966952.html
wow, higginslads, you have no clue about history, don't do drugs, stay in school, and don't believe in everything you read. especially those who just write what ever they want using no evidence to support their thesis
Michael, could you explain your justification for wanting to keep the settlements?
And what type of "alternative" to partition would have satisfied you in 1947?
higginslad, I would appreciate it, if we could make it a rule to give the exact source with statements like the supposed Nahum Goldman citation. As Michael, admittedly I mistrust it.
The net gives us this: PYRAMID OF EVIL (strictly a context that is to be expected, …)
Excerpts from Vol. II and III Antichrist Series by Brother Vincent de Paul, T.O.S.F., 1975.
Dr. Nahum Goldman, President of the World Jewish Congress, speaking at Montreal declared: “The Jews might have had Uganda, Madagascar and other places for the establishment of a Jewish Fatherland, but they want absolutely nothing except Palestine: … because Palestine is the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa, because Palestine constitutes the veritable center of world political power, the strategic center for world control.” (French Canadian paper L’Unite Nationale No. 4/1963
An admittedly very fast check in a German and Canadian catalogue does not bring a result that fits the date no.4/1963.
Here the closest result from a Canadian library catalogue:
NLC COPIES: Serials Stks – K-220-4 – [5-9] 1938-58
Serials Stks – K-220-4 – Copy 2 – [5-7] 1953-56
NAME(S): Parti de l'unité nationale du Canada
TITLE(S):*Unité nationale (Montréal, Québec : 1953)
Unité nationale (Montréal)
L'Unité nationale
PUBLISHER: Montréal : [Parti de l'unité nationale du Canada,
1953-1958?]
is somebody playing with the question mark?
DESCRIPTION: v. : ill. ; 42 cm.
Vol. 5, no 4 (déc. 1953)-
A cessé de paraître en 1958? Cf. Presse québécoise. Translation: Publication ceases in 1958? see below
FREQUENCY: Mensuel.
NOTES: Titre de départ.
Publié aussi sur microfilm (Montréal : Société
canadienne du microfilm).
RELATIONSHIPS: Unité nationale (Montréal, Québec : 1953) Montréal :
Société canadienne du microfilm, [19--]- 0830-3479
Continues: Combat national. Montréal : Parti de
l'unité nationale du Canada, [1938-1939] 1493-7794
NUMBERS: ISSN: 0830-3479
CLASSIFICATION: LC Class no.: FC98
It is a party periodical: of the "parti de l'unite nationale du Canada"
The Canadian nationalist party, also happened to have close sympathies for the Nazis. I don't have much time to look into this but here is a prominent member"Adrien Arcand" so this might be connected with the Canadian antisemitic tradition that the German Zuendel was an heir of:
In 1938, Arcand was chosen leader of the federalist/fascist National Unity Party of Canada, born of the fusion of his Parti National Social Chrétien with the Prairie Provinces’ Canadian Nationalist Party and Ontario’s Nationalist Party, which itself grew out of the Toronto Swastika Clubs of the early thirties.
And then we have this little item:
L'unité national.
NJ.FM.2851 d 1953- d 1958 AN 23227359
Continues Le combat national : organe du Parti de l Unité nationale du Canada. Montréal, QC
Stops in 1958 and continues as: The National Fight, Party periodical of The National Unity of Canada, Montreal.
Admittedly there is more not quite fitting material in this context. But none seems to fit the date above.
Given the tendencies of the apocalyptic adventure novels and conspiracy literature, I wouldn't be surprised if the statement was in fact completely or partly invented.
"the Canadian antisemitic tradition that the German Zuendel was an heir of"
Leander finally gets to put that expensive education to use! (Not much point in studying something for four years if you don't get to claim you've actually spotted it.)
at CHA,
I don't like the settlers, I don't like the settlements. As an Israeli lefty, I have to negotiate not only with the Palestinians, but I have to negotiate with the Israeli right as well.
"higginslad, I would appreciate it, if we could make it a rule to give the exact source with statements like the supposed Nahum Goldman citation. As Michael, admittedly I mistrust it."
I generally do, LeaNder, and in going back and looking for a source quickly now, I was unable to find one, so take it or leave it. Obviously, even things that ARE sourced are often untrue, so we are basically at an impasse with regard to each other's belief in what the other posts. For example, you wrote:
"Given the tendencies of the apocalyptic adventure novels and conspiracy literature, I wouldn't be surprised if the statement was in fact completely or partly invented."
Aside from your use of the word "conspiracy," which is a meaningless word that tells us nothing substantive about what we are dealing with, rather it is used to stifle debate (i.e. "911 conspiracy theorists"), the other problem is that your words describe exactly the history of Zionist literature that has been presented to the public at large for generations.
So, we each have things we believe. Big deal. Why not focus on what's in front of us? The Palestinians are being slaughtered, and the predominantly Zionist-controlled media is not allowing them a proper voice, and is slanting things ridiculously in favor of Israel. I am here to try to change that. How about you?
D. I guess, if I keep teasing Rchard Witty, I have to accept that someone pulls my leg. Education still isn't expensive over here, yes there are fees now: 1.000 € pro term/2 terms a year. It was completely free in my times. "Our elites" study in OxBridge/Harvard/Yale.
*****************************************
higginslad, you should be glad that Phil's spam filter kept me from drowning you beneath more revelations from my inquiry into your pseudo-Goldman citation.
But two short comments:
I would never use "911 conspiracy theorists" in any collective sense. Quite obviously 911 was a real conspiracy. And equally obviously people want to know. …
With "apocalyptic adventure novels and conspiracy literature" I don't mean research into real events. I mean a very specific literary genre, I mean a type of fiction that is sold as reality.
There is a difference. I accept everything that is based on facts versus fiction.
My teacher on US popular culture once called the first: conspiracy research vs the second: conspiracy theory.
" you should be glad that Phil's spam filter kept me from drowning you beneath more revelations from my inquiry into your pseudo-Goldman citation."
lol, well, if you tell me "I should be glad" then I'll take your word for it, LeaNder. I don't think the quote has been disproven at this point, so to label it "pseudo" is a bit much, but whatever makes you happy. Besides, there's plenty more where that came from, if indeed you're interested. Early Zionist leaders could be quite forthright when talking amongst themselves about their racist agenda, so there are plenty of "quotes" to go round. But, as I say, I'm more interested in concerning myself with what is in front of me now, not with arguing back and forth about who may have said what a hundred years ago. So, in that vein, I will continue to speak out on behalf of the Palestinians and anyone who else is oppressed and brutalized by the racist, supremacist Zionist ideology. Feel free to join me if you wish.
Despite pronouncements from Israeli leaders that the violence is damaging Acre’s image as a model of coexistence, the reality is of a deeply divided city, where the wounds of the 1948 war have yet to heal.
During the war, most local Palestinians were either killed or forced to leave, with the remainder penned up in the old city. Jewish immigrants, brought to settle the empty houses, were encouraged to see themselves as reclaiming the city for Jews.
In recent years the movement of Arab families into these “Judaised” neighbourhoods has revived talk of the need for Acre to be cleansed again of its Arabs.
The problem has been exacerbated by the relocation to Acre of some of the fanatical settlers withdrawn from Gaza three years ago and by the founding in 2001 of a hesder yeshiva, a school for religious men that combines army service.
The police have stated that the violence in Acre caught them by surprise, but there was little justification for their complacency.
Abbas Zakour, an Arab member of parliament and an Acre resident, had written to the public security minister days before Yom Kippur warning that it would offer a pretext for Jewish extremists to attack Arab residents.
He was concerned that, as in previous years, Jews would throw stones at Arab cars breaking the unofficial 24-hour curfew in the Galilee region, where Arabs are a majority. The failure of the police to intervene, he added, “leads the Arab public to believe that police are deliberately allowing the young Jews to attack innocent Arab residents who drive by”.
In a society where the grip of Jewish religious fundamentalism is tightening – stoked by the high birth rate of ultra-Orthodox Jews and the state’s generous support of a separate religious education system – such incidents regularly occur on Yom Kippur and less frequently on Saturdays, the official day of rest.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21027.htm
I don't think the quote has been disproven at this point, so to label it "pseudo" is a bit much, but whatever makes you happy.
There is only one thing that would make me happy. Facts. Now in this case obviously fact means: do the two sources given exist. I know many cases in which they do not. Or in which e.g. a real source is given but it does not contain the citation.
Thus I surely know what satisfies me. But what about you? What would be the ultimate proof for you? If I would show you, neither of the two sources given exists, or it exists and does not contain the quote, would that satisfy you, even make you happy? Or would it really disappoint you?
Besides, there's plenty more where that came from, if indeed you're interested.
Absolutely. I am a collector of this kind of lore.
Concerning the Palestinians, you don't need to convince me. I am on your or on Phil's side in this context, basically.
"But what about you? What would be the ultimate proof for you? If I would show you, neither of the two sources given exists, or it exists and does not contain the quote, would that satisfy you, even make you happy? Or would it really disappoint you?"
Happiness or sadness are emotional states I'll do my best to leave out of the equation. As to whether it would satisfy my intellect, who knows? I might take it at face value, or I might look further on my own. I suppose it would depend on what sort of mood I'm in at the time, which of course raises the issue of that which I just attempted to denounce: emotional involvement. I guess I'm human :)
Isn't it a contradiction to claim to leave "[h]appiness and sadness" out of the equation? Isn't it exactly that the Palestinians tales move us, while the tales are suspicious for the Israel-can-do-no-harm state of mind?
I once had an exchange with an Israeli (former US citizen) which tried to convince me that most (95%) of the tales–like the one that moved me–were really faked. Were simply propaganda.
**********************************************
Maybe I found your source by now. No war for Israel
If you take a closer look, in this case there is no source given. The trick being that it is simply used as a header.
I wanted to contact the web site's author. But couldn't find anyone. So I had to consult Sam Spade. What do you think? Will he answer me, if I ask him for his source? And why do you think, he doesn't show the readers of his page his face?