I keep posting about Madoff because it's huge and everyone is wondering which way this tree is going to fall. I think it has resonance for the Israel lobby.
Today on NPR they quoted somebody Flood in New York talking about investing with Madoff. From her accent, I sensed, she's Jewish (and certainly Jewish groups predominated among his investors). And she said in essence: There were a couple of red flags, and the numbers never did make complete sense but my accountant said, Hey, he's making a lot of money! The subtext of the interview was, He's a smart Jewish guy, he's the last person who'd screw us. Or as Scott McConnell wrote to me today: "the Madoff event may be the greatest example of intelligent people being blinded by ethnocentrism I've ever seen."
That is exactly the problem with the Israel lobby. It has essentially argued for years now, Jews know best how to conduct policy re Israel. No Arabists wanted, no gentiles either. Aaron David Miller showed that the last big peace effort, Camp Daivd 2000, was dominated by Jews on the American/Israel side. One of the revelations of the Jimmy Carter and Walt and Mearsheimer publishing events was that Jews got to review/dismiss the books. Almost all the reviews of Walt and Mearsheimer were by Jewish people, and they weren't anti-Zionist Jews like myself, they were leadership Jews. In a sense Walt and Mearsheimer were disposed of by one line in David Remnick's advance review in the New Yorker: when he said, these guys seem to think if you resolved Israel/Palestine, Osama bin Laden would go back into the family construction business. Ha! End of discussion. And the Jewish community, with notable exception, got into line on the book, and that was that. Ditto Carter. Jonathan Demme's movie has essentially this theme: Look at all the powerful Jews who are progressive on every issue but Palestine (PEP) and are dismissing Carter out of hand.
My point is that ethnocentrism is limiting and damaging. In Madoff's world, everyone was wrong, all those smart people were wrong. And in the Israel lobby world, everyone is wrong too: They have sought to package as American and acceptable a situation that virtually everyone else in the world regards as an outrage. It is easy to believe these things when you limit the discussion to likeminded people. But the strength of Obama America is that it is diverse. And limiting your expertise on an ethnic/religious basis is extremely damaging.
I wouldn't regard a barbaric, manipulative non-sequitur like "these guys seem to think if you resolved Israel/Palestine, Osama bin Laden would go back into the family construction business" as "end of discussion".
Yeah, let Remnick and the New Yorker crowd wet their pants about the enormous threat posed by a dead man in a cave somewhere, while "their country" (term used lightly) goes to absolute shit, thanks in large part to our thoroughly zionized media's keeping the public in the dark about most everything.
Yeah, let Remnick and the New Yorker crowd wet their pants about the enormous threat posed by a dead man in a cave somewhere, while "their country" (term used lightly) goes to absolute shit, thanks in large part to our thoroughly zionized media's keeping the public in the dark about most everything.
'"the Madoff event may be the greatest example of intelligent people being blinded by ethnocentrism I've ever seen." That is exactly the problem with the Israel lobby. It has essentially argued for years now, Jews know best how to conduct policy re Israel. No Arabists wanted, no gentiles either.'
Good point. They have collectively deluded themselves that the organized Jewish elite knows best what is best for Jews, and won't…in fact, can't…lead them astray. This reminds me of Catholics who refused to believe that the Church had a problem with pedophiles. When the truth was finally acknowledged, a lot of Catholics left the Church. No wonder organized Jewry is so desperate to maintain the facade of infallibility.
Most of us are scrounging pennies, and heres millions and billions gone through peoples hands, all sounds obscene, even in history there was a gentry and royalty, but this is a new, a fleeting wealth. Has there ever been a precedent for this? And with all the bankrupcies, how come no one is saying its because of the wars?
I'm not picking on you. Ed – I criticise practically everybody here – but I really think that is a very bizarre comparison. It only makes sense if, like Henry Makow or Texe Marrs, you imagine that what really separates the big Jews from the little Jews is their secret, satanic, Sabbatian rituals.
Unlike you Leftist, RB, I take the time intellectually distinguish between the charlatans and swindlers (in the case of modern organized Jewry, a signigicant percantage, but still only a percentage, of the whole), and their victims/suckers.
You on the fanatic Left simply want to murder them all…Christians, Jews, Muslims, dissidents…which is why you always were merely the flip side of Nazism, and today, merely the flip side of Zionism/Corporatism — that is, when you're not working with them to assasinate Christianity.
Ed, I spend my entire life sorting out the phonies.
Well, we have that in common, at least. So what belief system has the fewest ppm of frauds, phonies, charlatans, murderers and reprobates? I have concluded it is the Christian code that mandates accountability to a compassionate God, is diffuse, diverse, decentralized, and is the basis for Western civilization. You (apparently) have concluded it is socialism, which mandates accountability to mere dogma and deeply flawed Party "elites," often at the point of a statist gun, is highly centralized and doctrinaire, hence ripe for abuse and corruption, and is the basis for Communism.
Your turn, Rowan, Ed flipped the ball back into your court. BTW, what political party, if any, is indicated on your respective voting registration cards? Wonder what Madoff's says too.
Seems to me every belief system's textual statement of principles always contains terms of art that can be milked, while ignoring others.
Ed, like you, I have to go offline for a few hours out of 24, to sleep.
I consider marxian economic theory to be correct in the same way that I consider e.g. newton's laws of motion to be correct. Any extension of marxian claims beyond economics seems to me pointless and subjective, just like newton's study of alchemy apparently was pointless and subjective. This does not invalidate newton's laws of motion. You would not need me to say this, if you had not been systematically taught not to think straight.
You're both wrong; there's no magic bullet out there.
Christianity, with the possible exception of the Amish, is not being practiced as Jesus preached, ever since Constantine used the cross to unite his army and conquer. As if pacifist Jesus would ever approve of war in his name! Or the "gospel of prosperity" which is in vogue today.
And every time Marxism has been invoked, whether in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba or North Korea, people have become more poor and less free. Too much power in the hands of too few, who turn out to be just as greedy as the capitalists (maybe it's just human nature?)
A blend of socialism/capitalism with less government is probably best, and to each his own religion, with a firewall between church and state. I have to admit that the older I get the more I'm convinced that government is more likely to be foe than friend.
If I had said or evenimplied the various things you claim, Ana, I would indeed have been wrong. But you are not replying to me, you are replying to prefabricated ideological conceptions you yourself brought with you and attempted to impute to me.
The essence of the Madoff scandal in relation to the politics of the mideast is the enormous impact,economically,on the ` Israel Lobby. (And we all know the Lobby,is the structure,driving the racist/imperial policy of the US towards Israel.)
For openers: even if some of the "charitable" and nonprofit foundations that lost big bucks,don't go down,they will have a lot less money to pay to reproduce zionist consciousness,and monitor and repress the voice of the Palestinian cause..
Not to mention a great reduction in the financing of AIPAC related activites..
The simple truth is that the Jewish Bourgeoisie in NYC and America have less resources to use as weapons for zionsim..
Anybody think that's a bad thing?
well, I don't really believe it, hlmeankin. I rather think you will see all these zionist funders absconding from the USA and turning up as valued additions to the financial élite of Beijing.
Why is it that so many scandals involve Jewish Americans with strong links to Israel, Milliken, Samuel Israel3, Abramoff,
Boesky, Levine etc then there are the questionable dealings of Dov Zakheim, selling military planes at rock bottom prices to Israel, getting administrations to fund dud fighter jets and making up stories about Chinese interest. When it comes to money and especially if it involves Israel as a benefactor, all sense of right and wrong is abandoned. Those that call Jews on this are slandered. Time to listen to the criticism and take it to heart.
"Certainly Jewish groups predominated amongst his investors".
Have you got prove of your assertion? I am almost certain that most of the money Madoff stole belonged to non-jews.
You cant just quote things you feel are true if you are reading the USA media.
here's a church that got ripped off, sure if you searched you could find others: