The Meaning of Tonight

by on November 4, 2008 26
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Tonight the idea of American exceptionalism will fully surpass that of Jewish exceptionalism.

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Beyondoweiss, Israel/Palestine, Neocons, US Policy in the Middle East, US Politics

{ 26 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. Jack Ross says:
    November 4, 2008 at 2:56 pm

    I hope not, I hope its the end of American exceptionalism, that we might finally, as George McGovern and Pat Buchanan urged, come home.

  2. Richard Witty says:
    November 4, 2008 at 2:58 pm

    Tonight the conservative doctrine falls.

    Neo and paleo.

    It has NOTHING to do with anything Jewish, pro or con.

  3. Michael W says:
    November 4, 2008 at 3:28 pm

    Phil is forgetting that American Jews overwhelmingly vote Democrat – always. And Obama got the endorsement from many Jews. Just because Lieberman supports McCain, doesn't mean that all the other Jewish national representatives are also supporting the GOP candidate. Obama IS the Jewish candidate and it is Lieberman who is at odds with the Jewish community. Obama is more popular among Jews than Lieberman.

    This also has nothing to do with exceptionalism. How is it that such a candidate that was smeared so much as being Hitler and anti-Israel would get so much support from the Jews?

  4. anon says:
    November 4, 2008 at 3:54 pm

    Maybe it will be catchy, like in Israel?

  5. Moon says:
    November 4, 2008 at 5:47 pm

    When asked by a journalist on french TV how he is going to improve the image of America in the world, Obama answered:

    "It starts by bringing this war in Irak to a close. As long as we maintain an occupation in Irak it's gonna be hard for people to focus on other things. It's important for us to close gitmo and restore due process in how we're handling those prisoners.

    What I'd like to do is to commit a summit in the muslim world that calls all muslim leaders together to have a discussion about how we can prevent the widening misunderstandings and gaps between the muslim world and the West."

    guess what the conclusion of that will be!

    http://www.canalplus.fr/c-infos-documentaires/pid1830-c-zapping.html

    (04/11/08 at 1 minute)

  6. Alana says:
    November 4, 2008 at 6:12 pm

    Why do I get the impression "Moon" thinks a summit about avoiding misunderstandings with the muslim world is a very dangerous idea?

  7. Moon says:
    November 4, 2008 at 6:25 pm

    I think that it's a great idea, sorry if my English is not perfect.

  8. anon says:
    November 4, 2008 at 6:29 pm

    The idea of a nation of all humans is in full play–a great tribute to our founding fathers at their best! I say this as an Irishman with full knowledge of what the Brits did to my ancestors. All hail the best of the West, grounded in Reason and Christian principles.

  9. LeaNder says:
    November 4, 2008 at 7:16 pm

    Highly funny. Michael Ledeen agrees with our dear Phil: American journalism is broken. He still vacationing with his wife in South Africa. But is informed about fraud anyway.

    Mr. Faster Please cries bloody fraud:

    Well, that’s over and done with now [the superior American journalism]. Never before has the ignorance of the electorate been so intensely cultivated as in this election. We all know that major publications and broadcasters have simply refused to report news, and what they did report was spun politically. And among the stories they are not reporting, is the massive electoral fraud, from the “where is all that money coming from?” to the “how dare state officials refuse to verify the identity of voters?” one, to the refusal to report, day by day, on Joe Biden’s scandalously inept, incompetent, and often meretricious campaign. Instead, they obsess on every real and imagined misstatement by Sarah Palin, who for me has been the most attractive of the four candidates.

    How very sad that the next queen he helped to choose may not make it.

    Glenn G. from Brazil: has discovered one rumors' sources:

    Glenn Greenwald (4:19 p.m. EST): Joan — I've been watching Fox much of the day (in Brazil, where I am today, one can only view Fox and, intermittently, CNN-U.S. (it's interspersed with CNN-International).

    There is one message from Fox being repeated all day, and Karl Rove just did his part to bolster it: African-Americans aren't merely voting in droves, but are cheating and stealing the election for Obama. As part of that segment you described, Rove just "informed" Fox viewers not only that there are more registered voters than adults in Philadelphia (and made the same claim about Milwaukee), but also that voting precincts are in the homes and "barber shops" of Democratic ward leaders, that there are already votes in the voting machines before the day begins, that ACORN criminals control the process in many large cities, etc.

    Obama is going to take away the white people's money and give it to African-Americans with a new welfare program, and to make sure it happens, whites are being cheated and intimidated out of their vote. The endlessly looped Black Panther video ("intimidating white voters from voting") provides the perfect visual aid to this claim.

  10. Doppler says:
    November 4, 2008 at 8:28 pm

    When American forces liberated Nazi concentration camps, after conquering Germany 3 and 1/2 years after being attacked at Pearl Harbor, I don't think it would have occurred to anyone in the world to compare Jewish exceptionalism to American exceptionalism. Why 63 years later would an election result be necessary for America to "catch up" with the Jews? We just keep trying to live up to the ideals embodied in our founding documents. 40% of world Jewry have selected America as the place to live, and I don't think that is because of tonight's election. Get some perspective, Phil.

  11. Anonymous says:
    November 4, 2008 at 8:37 pm

    The end of jewish exceptionalism would be an event similar in magnitude to the spreading of quantification methods during high middle ages. Once man learned it wasn't fine to trade in gallons if gallons from different places where of different sizes (they were!). They didn't resort to creating "tolerance" for different sizes of gallons but opted for the fair alternative of adjusting the measure "gallon" to a standard. One day the same will happen regarding jews and their exceptionalism. People will perceive that the right way to spread justice is not the "tolerance" way, but equal treatment under the law and human rights and that includes the right of every human being to be protected from a-priori defamation and abstract prejudice which are in fact two of the cornerstones of jewish education where a young child is made to believe that an abstract entity called gentile (that is, even unborn children) is deserving of suspicion on hereditary grounds. This kind of thinking will one day be justly regarded as against human inalienable rights. One day, but not today, for everyone is pretending that it's not the case, that it's an exageration, that's a wrong interpretation, that they should be excused because of their victim status. I say look at the thing in it's eyes and stop lying to yourselves. It demands containment (as Ed would have said). It is not a choice, it's a duty of every human being to refuse to accept being given the "gentile" status as a "natural" consequence of the presence of a people who place themseves apart and call themselves victims who are in fact only human beings like you and me.

  12. Dan Kelly (higginslads) says:
    November 4, 2008 at 8:57 pm

    Those on the left who back Obama, although they disagree with much of what he promotes, believe they are choosing the practical over the moral. They see themselves as political realists. They fear John McCain and the Republicans. They believe Obama is better for the country. They are right. Obama is better. He is not John McCain. There will be under Obama marginal improvements for some Americans although the corporate state, as Obama knows, will remain our shadow government and the working class will continue to descend into poverty. Democratic administrations have, at least until Bill Clinton, been more receptive to social programs that provide benefits, better working conditions and higher wages. An Obama presidency, however, will make no difference to those in the Middle East.

    I can’t join the practical. I spent two decades of my life witnessing the suffering of those on the receiving end of American power. I have stood over the rows of bodies, including women and children, butchered by Ronald Reagan’s Contra forces in Nicaragua. I have inspected the mutilated corpses dumped in pits outside San Salvador by the death squads. I have crouched in a concrete hovel as American-made F-16 fighter jets, piloted by Israelis, dropped 500- and 1,000-pound iron-fragmentation bombs on Gaza City.

    I can’t join the practical because I do not see myself exclusively as an American. The narrow, provincial and national lines that divide cultures and races blurred and evaporated during the years I spent in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the Balkans. I built friendships around a shared morality, not a common language, religion, history or tradition. I cannot support any candidate who does not call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan and an end to Israeli abuse of Palestinians. We have no moral or legal right to debate the terms of the occupation. And we will recover our sanity as a nation only when our troops have left Iraq and our president flies to Baghdad, kneels before a monument to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi war dead and asks for forgiveness.

    We dismiss the suffering of others because it is not our suffering. There are between 600,000 and perhaps a million dead in Iraq. They died because we invaded and occupied their country. At least three Afghan civilians have died at the hands of the occupation forces for every foreign soldier killed this year. The dead Afghans include the 95 people, 60 of them children, killed by an air assault in Azizabad in August and the 47 wedding guests butchered in July during a bombardment in Nangarhar. The Palestinians are forgotten. Obama and McCain, courting the Israeli lobby, do not mention them. The 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza live in a vast open-air prison. Supplies and food dribble through the Israeli blockade. Ninety-five percent of local industries have shut down. Unemployment is rampant. Childhood malnutrition has skyrocketed. A staggering 80 percent of families in Gaza are dependent on international food aid to survive.

    It is bad enough that I pay taxes, although I will stop paying taxes if we go to war with Iran. It is bad enough that I have retreated into a safe, privileged corner of the globe, a product of industrialized wealth and militarism. These are enough moral concessions, indeed moral failings. I will not accept that the unlawful use of American military power be politely debated among us like the subtle pros and cons of tort law.

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21152.htm

  13. bar_kochba132 says:
    November 5, 2008 at 12:18 am

    Whether Obama serves one or two terms, I can assure you that there will NOT be a Palestinian state in existence then.

    Regarding Moon's mentioning the idea of a grand "Muslim-Western" conclave to discuss their differences, this reminds me of Shimon Peres' idea of having Israel join the Arab League….one of its officials replied "sure, once you have all converted to Islam!". That would be a sure recipe for success of this grand conference as well.

    Regarding "Jewish exceptionalism"….I am not sure what Phil means by this. If it means that we believe our existence as a identifiable group with a special set of laws which have inspired the whole world (e.g. where do you think the idea of a 7-day week with at least one day off of work comes from? The Jews and the Book of Genesis in the Bible) we are not going to do Phil and the various antisemites who post comments here and disappear just because Obama became President. I don't know where Phil gets the idea that he is being crowned "Philospher-Emperor". Phil is not the only Jew worried about our attachment to our traditions and laws….Trotsky and the "Yevsektsia" had the same idea..they thought that Communism and the GULAG would be a good antidote. Well, one of my friends here in Israel is a "right-wing, Orthodox/religious pro-Judea/Settler" grandson of a general in the NKVD. This camp is growing nicely, thank you, in spite of Obama's election.

  14. Dan Kelly (higginslads) says:
    November 5, 2008 at 12:33 am

    JERUSALEM WORRIED ABOUT EFFECT OF OBAMA WIN ON U.S. RELATIONS WITH IRAN

    Israel is worried about what the outcome of America's presidential election may portend for Washington's policy on Iran.

    On most Israel-related issues, Jerusalem foresees no dramatic changes in U.S. policy, regardless of who is elected. On Iran, however, it is worried that Democratic candidate Barack Obama will take a significantly softer line than the outgoing administration has. During his campaign, Obama repeatedly said that if elected, he would begin a dialogue with the Iranian regime…

    Overall, however, a Foreign Ministry assessment of the future of Israeli-American relations after the election remains optimistic.

    "Whichever president is elected is not expected to make significant changes with regard to Israel," said the assessment, which was presented at a ministry-sponsored conference a few weeks ago. The document also noted that ISRAEL HAS A "SAFETY NET" IN THE FORM OF CONGRESS AND CERTAIN FRIENDLY EXECUTIVE AGENCIES, WHICH WILL HELP TO BALANCE ANY PROBLEMATIC PRESIDENTIAL TILT.

    http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1034311.html

  15. LeaNder says:
    November 5, 2008 at 12:51 am

    Congratulations to the great people of the US of A.

  16. Madrid says:
    November 5, 2008 at 1:02 am

    Bar Kochba:

    Just for your info, the seven day week dates to earlier than the Old Testament. The first known civilizations to use the 7 day week were Sumer and ancient Egypt, both of which you would doubtless refer to as the infidel. Jewish and Christian adoption of a 7 day week comes from those two influences. But apart from that, the Chinese and the Hindus also developed a 7 day week, quite apart from any influence from Judaism or Christianity. All of these civilizations did so by watching the moon's revolutions around the earth, not out of deference to the Edenic myth. Sorry to burst the bubble of your exceptionalism mantra!

  17. JOHN DICKERSON says:
    November 5, 2008 at 2:00 am

    "ISRAEL HAS A "SAFETY NET" IN THE FORM OF…..CERTAIN FRIENDLY EXECUTIVE AGENCIES"

    Israeli sleeper cells?

  18. mountaingoat says:
    November 5, 2008 at 4:57 am

    The Meaning of Tonight
    Tonight the idea of American exceptionalism will fully surpass that of Jewish exceptionalism.>>>

    What horseshit. Jews like Phil think America is some kind of video game. Except that when it gets too hot in America Phil can fly off to Israel. Us exceptionalists are stuck here to fight it out after the mess you have made, you ingrates. Wish to God you never came here to our shores with all of your isms. We were progressing quite well before you came here you hypocritical bastards.

  19. D. says:
    November 5, 2008 at 5:25 am

    "Regarding "Jewish exceptionalism"….I am not sure what Phil means by this. If it means that we believe our existence as a identifiable group with a special set of laws which have inspired the whole world …"

    You're too modest. Not only do you understand it, but apparently you actually believe it.

  20. bar_kochba132 says:
    November 5, 2008 at 5:54 am

    D-You bet I do. You ever hear all those songs the black slaves in the South sung about their hope for freedom that came from the Bible? Even Jeremiah Wright quotes from it. So did all the Abolitionists.

  21. anon says:
    November 5, 2008 at 6:19 am

    It could also be said the identifiable group with a special set of laws has nauseated the whole world?

    Net asset or net deficit?

    Time for Jews to wake up at least as much as USA did yesterday?

  22. Todd says:
    November 5, 2008 at 7:02 am

    "Tonight the conservative doctrine falls.

    Neo and paleo."

    There is nothing conservative about the neos, and the Paleos haven't been in power in forever. Jimmy Carter was more conservative than Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich was a fraud. The Paleos are probably in good shape now, and the neos will probably try to infect the left once again.

  23. Union Jack says:
    November 5, 2008 at 8:58 am

    Thank you to all the Jews in the USA who voted for Obama in greater numbers than any other ethnic group other than African-Americans.

  24. American says:
    November 5, 2008 at 10:56 am

    There is no jewish exceptionalism….except in their own minds.

    The exceptionalism of jews is like which came first the chicken or the egg….'we are the world's victims therefore we are exceptional'.. or… 'we are exceptional therefore we are made victims'.

    I don't think it can really even be discussed by a logical person, it's something like seeing a deviation from nature, a two headed cow at a fair, you just stratch your head in wonderment.

    Anyway this election wasn't about jews, it was about blacks and the general dissafisfaction of Americans with the state of the US.

    It may become about Israel and therefore about jews as Obama goes on for better or worse, we will see.

  25. American says:
    November 5, 2008 at 11:19 am

    "If it means that we believe our existence as a identifiable group with a special set of laws which have inspired the whole world"

    Er…which laws are those?

    You know I see some jews on here all the time talking about jewish morality and ethics and etc….but then I look around at what they do..such as in Israel, as in the US with their hatefulness toward gentiles who criticize Israel and their slander and sluring of good people, their dirty way of operating in our government, their defaming of other races and religions like Arabs and Muslims…

    I see some individual jews to admire but I see nothing to admire about jews as a group.

    I use to wonder about anti-semitism..which I though was defined as hating jews for being jews….but the more I watch the jewish groups the more I understand that jews in many ways have earned the disgust the majority of the world has for them because of their own behavior.

    So if the jews by being jews have brought such gifts to the world how come they are still attracting the animosity of 90% of the world? Is it criminal Israel because Israel is the ultimate expression of jewishness?

    The bulk of everything written about Obama by jews, with some brave exceptions, has been soley about whether or not Obama would be good for Israel and the Jews…nothing like the message and talk and writting of non jewish Obama supporters, of all kinds of races, who hoped Obama would bring all people together.

  26. anon says:
    November 5, 2008 at 1:42 pm

    Good point, American.

    There are Jews like Phil, who actually take seriously the enhancement of all mankind, and those who are essentially just tribal followers. Phil, in this spirit, is a full human who happened to be born of blood Jewish parents in a given time and place where he could actually
    be according to his own choice, and fully protected (by goy troops).

    OH my God, look what this has wrought.

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