Two Jewish critics of Zionism respond to my posts about the conference Sunday I'm going to, about trying to recuperate the Jewish antiwar tradition... Here is Jack Ross, who is irritated by my description of the conferees as PEP --which means "Progressive Except for Palestine":
Who ever came up with that inane acronym, and all the rest of you out
there, miss the point about these people. Its not about an ethnic blind spot,
it's about their conceit that they really are "liberal" or
"progressive", whatever that even means. There are those in the
middle, which is frankly most of the folks at my shul (or at least
those who will be at the conference), who are at least nominally
pro-Palestinian because of their conceit about being part of something
called "the left". And then there are those who actually oppose
Zionism because it's just plain wrong, which is what I find so
refreshing about Anna Baltzer and her crew.
As for me, I know the score about what's up over there but I fear becoming as radical as y'all, so I escape the reality and into history, which is why I'm in Cincinnati right now.
As for me, I know the score about what's up over there but I fear becoming as radical as y'all, so I escape the reality and into history, which is why I'm in Cincinnati right now.
And here is Jeff Blankfort on the same event:
What does David Remick's article on Obama and the schedule for the Nov.23 Shalom Center
have in common? There is no mention of the word, Palestine. How Remnick
can write a 12,000 word article on Obama without mentioning his connections to
the Jewish community, to AIPAC, and his support of Israel, is extraordinary but Edward Said
would have understood it. He stopped reading the New Yorker because of
its long mistreatment of the Palestine question although Si Hersh's
articles re Iran and the CIA are always worth reading.
The Shalom Center, Rabbi Waskow's baby, is problematic. Waskow has bragged to the Forward that he has managed to keep the Palestinian issue out of the anti-war demonstrations called by the UFPJ and in that he has been ably assisted by Leslie Cagan, another old time Jewish lefty, also on the program. There is nothing politically left about this affair at all. It is just another tribal feel good ritual in which one can expect to hear "tikkun olam" from more than one speaker. I trust Amy Goodman won't be one of them, but even she did not have the courage to interview either Mearsheimer or Walt.
The Shalom Center, Rabbi Waskow's baby, is problematic. Waskow has bragged to the Forward that he has managed to keep the Palestinian issue out of the anti-war demonstrations called by the UFPJ and in that he has been ably assisted by Leslie Cagan, another old time Jewish lefty, also on the program. There is nothing politically left about this affair at all. It is just another tribal feel good ritual in which one can expect to hear "tikkun olam" from more than one speaker. I trust Amy Goodman won't be one of them, but even she did not have the courage to interview either Mearsheimer or Walt.
good old Jeff.
While Phil goes to the conference next sunday, and we wait to have Hillary's confirmation affirmed as Secretary of State, it remains true that the appointment of Rahm Emanuel as president-elect Barack Obama’s new chief of staff drew a wave of jubilation in Israel at the prospect of the son of an Irgun fighter running the White House, and a wave of condemnation in the Arab world for much the same reason. The Israeli press embraced him as “Obama’s Israeli,” while the Arab press derided him as an agent for the Mossad. In comparison, in the American Press no clue to this giant soft WW3 is given, mostly just gossip about
how Emanuel is a pit bull at getting campaign donations. The silence in the vaunted Fourth Estate hurts my ears.
Why do they hate us?
@ Observer: "The silence in the vaunted Fourth Estate hurts my ears. Why do they hate us?"
What do Jewish Zionists and the mainstream media demographic have in common? They are largely left-liberal, they are largely elitist, they are largely pseudo-righteous (ie highly selective about their moral outrage) and they are both intertwined with a socialist oligarchy that extracts resources from the provinces, consolidates them in Washington and New York, and divies them up primarily to elite insiders and the connected, allowing a pittance to trickle down to everyone else simply to keep the lid on.
The left-liberal mainstream media are part of the Zionist scam, and have been for decades.
You have a positively Birchist determination to define all forms of tyranny as 'socialist', Ed, let me tell you.
Rowan, I disagree. If you've followed Ed's posts over the last couple of years, the conventional modern form of Republicans do not get off the hook at all (and neither do 1940s-style fascist regimes and
groups); Ed is not a traditional Birchist at all. I bet he would agree that NAZI stands for National Socialist Workers Party–you need to
appreciate Ed's depth. Socialism is the way to mask negative elite agendas so they will be accepted by populists.
Corporate welfare and corporate hegemony partnering with
standard liberal welfare interests–that's our current situation.
I'm sure Ed would like to see the Obama regime get rid of that, though I'm equally sure he does not see it happening, especially
as the Obama cabinet slowly appears.
Ed is a libertarian, and a Constitutionalist, and he knows the roots
of the best of this nation derive from Christian impulses partnering with the Enlightenment–the Deist way.
Hagee et all are not really Christian at all.
Ed knows the parables of Christ.
Look at Ed's POV over the last couple years of posts here.
@RB
Hitler was an ethnic fundamentalist socialist; the Stalinists and Jewish Bolsheviks were communist-socialists, the early Zionists and the current Jewish diaspora sustainers of Zionism are ethnic fundamentalist socialists. They all use the cover of socialism to pursue their narcissistic, megalomaniacal agendas, and make Gods of themselves and their comrades. Same with Bush and his Neocons comrades, and now Obama and his Neolib comrades. They all want to consolidate power under their authority, and exercise it as they see fit.
The Founders understood that religion has a place, and government has a (limited) place, and never the two shall meet. They also understood how essential the diffusion of power is, particularly to prevent corruption and abuse of power, hence federalism and checks and balances.
Socialists (who could more correctly be described as elitist charlatans selling socialist salvation) are so intellectually stunted, narcissistic and megalomaniacal, they simply can’t fathom their own corruptible nature and the corrupted nature of man. What’s not to despise?
What is Christian, rather than Jewish?
Why not start here:
In my opinion, there are two related troubles with Ed's position:
1. It's not clear what we are to do while we wait for the state to wither away and Jesus to pick up the reins.
2. It often seems to be not a political position at all, but more like primal scream therapy.
Seems pretty clear to me. Force Israel to give up the occupied land.
Cut off the current 30 billion dollar entitlement, and the extra billions in disguised free grants and memorandums of support, e.g.,
for USA to pay for Israel oil needs, mass transfer of weapons and
security technology, even exchange of IT data. Cut it all off.
Then, tell the Israel government: Shape up to minimal Western values
or ship out. Don't ask us to compare you with the Arab regimes–we all know they are hopeless in terms of democracy and equal rights,etc–but shape up, be the state you constantly claim to be
as if the USA and Europe don't know what you've been doing.
That's the only way to take the wind from beneath the wings of
total hypocrisy, which is killing the USA's moral stature in the world, which we need even more than a military that is more than most of the world's combined.
Not to mention, the USA would have a few bucks left over to
try not to turn the whole country into a Katrina.
D.: "It's not clear what we are to do while we wait for the state to wither away and Jesus to pick up the reins."
The country did pretty damn well for its first 150 odd years with the Protestant establishment running things. And for several decades after that, it was able to run on the fumes of their ethic. But it’s failing fast today (not coincidentally as the Jewish Establishment, the Wall Street banksters and the centralizing socialists have solidified their hold) and there's zero chance that this bunch can ever turn things around.
My remedy? Cut government, decentralize, and reassert State’s rights. Tighten up the borders to keep wages up, reward domestic manufacturing and employment and charge foreign manufacturing for access to our market. Institute school vouchers so religious schools can make a comeback (and force competition upon the cesspool public schools, most of which will likely fail for lack of customers), hollow out military spending, and quit subsidizing Zionists, authoritarian Muslims, the defense of European socialists, etc., and quit trying to play God and police/control the world.
It really isn't rocket science. But such a program, probably the only kind of program that could save the country, would be virtually impossible to attain under the psychotic "elite" currently running the country. Half of them are simply milking the country for all the money they can like pimps running their whores, and the other ideological half would rather see the country collapse than admit their socialist way is quit obviously insane.
"The country did pretty damn well for its first 150 odd years with the Protestant establishment running things. "
That tells you all you need to know about Ed's position. Yeah, things were wonderful for blacks and Native Americans and Chinese laborers and so forth.
I'm anti-Zionist myself and even agree with some of his criticisms of our ruling elites (of all ethnicities) , but I find that this isn't enough to make me feel any sense of kinship with Ed's brand of anti-Zionism, which looks remarkably like old-fashioned rightwing nativism.
""The country did pretty damn well for its first 150 odd years with the Protestant establishment running things. "
That tells you all you need to know about Ed's position. Yeah, things were wonderful for blacks and Native Americans and Chinese laborers and so forth.
"
Re-read Ed's post: "The *country* did pretty damn well for its first 150 odd years with the Protestant establishment running things."
The country did so well, in fact, that people from all over the world (including China) wanted to become Americans and assimilate into a culturally anglo-saxon Protestant civil society.
If that's rightwing nativism, count me in.
So, Ed, perhaps you would share with us your definition of 'socialism'. It must be a rather large and unusual definition.
Adopting the same position as David Duke and Pat Buchanan on Israel and Palestine is not "progressive." Fortunately, most liberals/progressives recognize that Israel is the more "progressive" side in this debate.
The establishment of Israel and its policies thereafter is progressive?
Joshua, progressive for whom?
Exactly how does corporate welfare fit into any definition of 'socialism'?
People who think that supporting apartheid Israel is a liberal/progressive position clearly have no idea what the terms mean…
The Protestant establishment comment was to D.'s skepticism that a Christian-ethic based country can succeed.
"Yeah, things were wonderful for blacks and Native Americans and Chinese laborers and so forth."
Slavery still goes on in Africa, but a civil war was fought in this country under the Protestant establishment to end it. Chinese laborers had it moderately worse than Irish ones, and none had it good. The Native Americans warred against each other as viciously as the whites warred against them, just with different weapons. Most native Americans were killed by disease. You've been indoctrinated by too much anti-Christian Jewish/socialist propaganda.
Judeofascists and the centralizing socialist elite reduce EVERYONE not of their ilk into animals. Just look at Palestine, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. They all committed their crimes under the "victim"/"historical justice" guise, too, the same guise socialists are selling in this country, and the same guise that Bush used to sell the Iraq war, for example. And it's the same excuse the Zionists are using for their crimes in the Mideast: "We're victims, not perpetrators!" Yeah, sure you are.
My reading of history says Ed is correct on the facts.
"The country did so well, in fact, that people from all over the world (including China) wanted to become Americans and assimilate into a culturally anglo-saxon Protestant civil society.
If that's rightwing nativism, count me in."
Don't need to count you in–you're already there. I don't have to have romantic notions about Native Americans or Africans to recognize that this country didn't come remotely close to being a free country for either blacks or Native Americans or Chinese until after that 150 year period that Ed idealizes. Blacks couldn't vote in large parts of the country until the 1960's.
As for anti-Christian propaganda, I am a Christian. And I've read history. The Americans who really did want America to live up to its ideals in those first 150 years were the malcontents–people like William Lloyd Garrison who burned the Constitution as a pact with Hell, because it endorsed slavery. Now that's the part of Protestant America that I respect. The rest of it had made a pact with Hell. It started to redeem itself with the abolition of slavery and then it went back to its vomit (to use the biblical phrase) of racism for another 100 years.
Ed should consider the possibility of D. being not the count, but the impersonator. In many years of reading the D. he never behaved this way. Maybe I'm wrong but, you know, there is this possibility.
And the Anonymous up there is not me, but probably the one who signed "Anon" (not our good "anon") down there in the dungeons and wanted to talk to non-antisemite anti-zionists, but the only anti-zionist guy who has 1 an extended knowledge of judaic matters 2 a not so critical view of jews (at least for now) and 3 a desire to talk to anyone, even if it explicitly states rules of who is and who isn't deserving of talk is MM who, in any case, seems to be a bit tired of je…. of us, I mean.
In fact the only time I read a comment from D. similar to the ones being directed at Ed was precisely when he was being impersonated and I fell for it, to my lasting shame. The impersonator makes many victims and he is a mondoweisian entity who must be taken into consideration whenever a comment seems to be over the top.
US Territorial Acquisitions
anonymous:
"As for anti-Christian propaganda, I am a Christian…who burned the Constitution as a pact with Hell, because it endorsed slavery. Now that's the part of Protestant America that I respect. The rest of it had made a pact with Hell."
You sound more like a raging socialist ideologue posing as a Christian to me. Christians don't need to burn books. Intellectuals in harmony with cosmic justice don't need to censor information or speech to elevate their message. Censorship and book burning are acts of insecurity and fallacy designed to obscure truth.
anyone so obsessed with the imaginary world crypto-communist menace, that they actually believe that zionism in its entirety is a communist front, is an idiot. Even Churchill understood that zionism was an alternative to communism.
The idea that the reason for Israel’s inhumanity is that it is crypto-Marxist, as in the work of ‘Jack Bernstein’, entitled "My Life as a Jew in Marxist, racist Israel" is a fabrication. According to one opinion, (Andrew Mathis) “There was no Jack Bernstein. Len Martin of Posse Comitatus made him up.” According to another opinion “a red-haired guy with a big nose who smoked a pipe and wore camoflouge outfits and who called himself Jack Bernstein used to visit the old SPOTLIGHT office and spend a lot of time there. He was close to Len Martin and later worked with Haviv Schieber and Chuck Fischbein. And then when this guy who called himself Jack Bernstein went to the Philippines to get himself a bride, he picked up some strange illness, and later he died. And, as I recall, I helped put up some money to bury him. We ran pictures of Bernstein in the SPOTLIGHT (the same Bernstein that visited the office). But, of course, Andrew Mathis will say that I am lying! Andrew Mathis is a godamned liar. Always has been. Always will be.” So, the jury’s still out on that.
RB: "anyone so obsessed with the imaginary world crypto-communist menace, that they actually believe that zionism in its entirety is a communist front, is an idiot."
You keep deliberately misinterpreting what I am saying. For the second time, I am saying socialism is a front for Zionist ethnic fundamentalism, not vice-versa. In many ways, Communism was a front for Jewish Bolshevik ethnic fundamentalism too, but not in its entirety. And the only "idiots" are those who need to resort to ad-hominem attacks, and who have to put misstatements in other people's mouths in order to win a debate. RB, are you a dedicated socialist? Your dishonest tactics suggest you are.
I don’t believe anyone can simultaneously be a Christian and a socialist in any form, be it Left or Right. Socialism is by definition coercive — using State power to impose its will. Anyone who wants to do good works should join a religion, or start their own if they’re unhappy with the choices, not join government and coerce others into backing their opinion of what ‘good works’ are. Good works will become self-evident in the marketplace of ideas.
Deep down, socialists know their ideas can’t compete in the marketplace, and so run to government to impose their twisted notions of right and wrong on others, just like many ideological Jewish fanatics. Both know their sick ideas have little appeal to humanity, and so they need government to ram them down people’s throats. Rather than admitting their own dysfunction, they’d rather change the definition of right and wrong. But it doesn’t work out because they’re trying to rewrite God’s law, sick megalomaniacs that they are.
you'll like this then, Ed: According to an interview published on 3 July by Haaretz, Rafi Eitan is a partner in a company that owns vast orchards in Cuba, but when asked about the secret of his ties to Castro, he answers: 'There is no secret. It's simply not true. I don't work with Castro. I'm a farmer in Cuba. All the rest are bluffs by the press … The company deals with agriculture in Cuba, mainly with growing vegetables and producing citrus juice concentrate at the world's largest plant. I met Castro a few times, but we're not friends.'
"As for anti-Christian propaganda, I am a Christian. And I've read history. The Americans who really did want America to live up to its ideals in those first 150 years were the malcontents–people like William Lloyd Garrison who burned the Constitution as a pact with Hell, because it endorsed slavery. Now that's the part of Protestant America that I respect. The rest of it had made a pact with Hell. It started to redeem itself with the abolition of slavery and then it went back to its vomit (to use the biblical phrase) of racism for another 100 years."
The part of Protestant America that you respect (i.e. the radical Garrison) could never have existed without the civil society established by the part of Protestant America you *don't* respect. Someone like Garrison would have been rubbed out very quickly in China or Mexico.
I also respect reformers, but I am vehemently opposed to radical attacks on the foundations of our society for the sake of ideological fashion, however well-meaining.
Further on the mysterious story of Jack 'My Life as a Jew in racist, Marxist Israel' (1985) Bernstein and his chums:
It is really most unlikely that either Haviv Schieber or Chuck Fischbein had anything to do with either the SPOTLIGHT or its successor, the American Free Press. Nevertheless, being pranksters among other things, and enjoying a joke, they claim:
"Through their association with Liberty Lobby, the now-defunct populist institution on Capitol Hill in Washington, AFP’s current writers and editors worked with a number of prominent Jewish critics of Zionism seeking an outlet for their point of view that was unavailable through the major media in the United States. Some of those big names included:
# Benjamin Freedman (now deceased), the wealthy American benefactor who was the driving force behind a number of important publishing ventures that challenged Zionist influence in America;
# Haviv Schieber (now deceased), the Polish-born former mayor of Beersheva, Israel, who later defected to the United States and emerged as an outspoken critic of Israel;
# Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal, who, as far back as 1948, wrote a famous article for Reader’s Digest declaring, “Israel’s Flag Is Not Mine.”
# Famed civil libertarian attorney Mark Lane, best known for his best-selling works on the JFK assassination, such as Rush to Judgment and Plausible Denial;
# Former Jewish National Fund Executive Director Charles M. Fischbein, one of the highest ranking officials in the Zionist organizational community in America, who went public with inside tales of corruption and intrigue in the Israeli lobby."