Every once in a while I do a post about how many Jews there are in American public life, trying to get more comfortable with talking about it. It's fascinating on any number of levels, and no one talks about it, except anti-Semites and the Jewish press, with quiet pride. What does it mean to our politics? And what does it mean to Establishment culture?
My latest experience of that presence was watching a lot of political TV last night. Here's my rundown of Jewish people in important places: Arlen Specter. Jeff Greenfield (on Obama's 100 days). Adam Cohen, author and Greenfield source. Ari Fleischer, ditto. Later, on Hardball: Howard Fineman and Andrea Mitchell on Specter. A three-cushion shot there. This morning, Mara Liasson on NPR. Oh and I hear Jon Stewart was talking about Jane Harman last night. And of course today Laura Rozen at Foreign Policy is reporting on Harman and Lanny Davis, and rabbi's son Jeremy Bash becoming Panetta's chief of staff.
The cultural significance of this presence is huge. Jewish intelligence, Jewish critical thinking, Jewish bookish tradition, aspiring Jewish family life in the 1960s--all play a role in this. I come out of this world. I'm remembering that I once saw Greenfield and his father at Three Arrows, a leftleaning communal resort in Putnam County, New York, that my late grandfather was also a member of. I guess that Greenfield has that leftish inheritance, just as Wolf Blitzer has his Zionist inheritance. But that's political, I'm talking right now of the cultural aspect.
I find it all a little incestuous. I don't think anyone can truly deny that Jews don't have some affinity toward other Jews in professional life. In his great book, Yuri Slezkine talks about Jewish kinship networks, and prestige, and nepotism, in the 19th century, in ways that anticipate the social cohesion and snobberies of the neocon dynastic families. For a long time, I got work from Jewish guys I'd met in college. (Hope to keep that kinship network going!) And it's no accident that my partner on this site is Adam Horowitz (though both of us are universalist Jews).
I'm not diving into this issue all the way today. Haven't got the brain cells. I am attempting a mental exercise here, though, so I can try to think more clearly about the world the Jews made in the U.S. Last night my wife and I were talking about a friend who half-ruined a fancy party by criticizing the movie the party was held to celebrate, in front of one of the producers. My wife said that it seemed to her kind of Jewish. She meant the unbridled critical faculty, which god knows I've ruined many a party with. She'd never do that. Breeding. What's that word mean?
Why am I the first comment to appear here in this thread? And why does it say I will be the first to comment? I earlier read a bunch of comments here. Where are they? Why are they not counted by typepad beneath Phil's article post? Phil, what happened to your comments function in typepad? Why have so many published comments now vanished under the various threads to your recent published articles on this blog? There use to be the WASP "Gentleman's Agreement." Now there's a Jewish American "Gentleman's Agreement." Or, as you call it, a Jewish networking thing. This permeates business and any profession that influences mass public opinion–including of course, government.
Jewish influence has definitely made for a weaker and less cohesive nation, and a sense that the media and government don't understand or like the majority, and actively work against most Americans to benefit themselves. I guess Phil would label me an anti-Semite for saying as much, but what else can one make of the situation? His writing pretty much reveals every point I made. I'd also say that nation tends to vastly overrate its capabilities, as Jews tend to do. And we tend to look like loud, ill-mannered shysters to the rest of the world, and I believe that is a result of the entertainment media. I believe that many of the successful television series and movies are now just lifted from BBC or other foreign makers because the rift is just too great at this point–judging by his recent movies even Woody Allen seems to understand this. There is a major disconnect between Jews and traditional America that even massive immigration will not solve. The absence of loyalty, and the calm admission of ethnic favoritism Phil mentions, that would have Jews screaming racism or discrimination from the rooftops if it were done by Whites, don't do much good for the nation.
The nation is weaker and poorer in just about every way than it was before the "meritocracy" took hold. Is that a coincidence? It could be, but I don't believe that a generation of elites that are for all real purposes foreigners who are waging war on the majority is good for any nation. And let's not forget Palestine, and the constant threat by Jews to trash the history, culture and legitimacy of the United States if average Americans don't internalize the IP conflict.
Jews! Get real! Jews are just like every other group. The overwhelming majority are dim-witted slobs, a few are smart and a VERY few are genuinely talented. Start keeping a tally of Jews you meet and tell me how many are smart. How many show an ounce of originality. Jews as a group are riding the coat-tails of a handful of justly celebrated geniuses. Imagine Arlen Spector explaining the basics of general relativity. Imagine Ari Fleisher interpreting Paul Celan. Most Jews, like most Americans, can't think their way out of a dry cleaning bag and are thoroughly uncultured nobodies. But how we LOVE to talk about Jewish intellect, as though it's a simple fact of nature. We need to get over this.
Shades of Charles Murray in Commentary….
Here's a sample of the new American Culture: http://www.adc.org/PDF/hatemail.pdf
Thanks Citizen I'm sure the ADL will get right on it because I read the ADL's mission statement. I'm sure the MSM & Cable news will too.
Can be ironic. In another thread Phil or someone noted that, admirably, jews were and are heavily involved in the various groups and movements pushing expanded civil rights and civil liberties, which of course includes laws to ban employment discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity and etc. And that law includes provisions that go towards saying that discrimination can be found against employers where statistical evidence shows otherwise inexplicable "disparate" employment effects. (Such as whites getting 75% of all job openings even though equal numbers of whites and blacks had applied for the jobs and they all had roughly equal credentials.) However, when people now look at the simply enormous disparate number of jewish folks in certain positions, fields, industries or etc. (as compared to the jewish percentage of the general population), the reaction isn't some presumption that jews have discriminated in hiring in favor of other jews, but instead the recitation that jews simply have cultural characteristics explaining the huge disparities that can be seen. Not that the cultural explanation isn't true (and for my part I think it is in general), but it's funny how how the sauce for one goose isn't sauce for all ganders.
To answer Phil's subject question: By raising us all far above the lowest common denominator? Preemptive war, unilateral force in lieu of diplomacy, use of torture, turing a good part of the world into the evil Other? Giving us cheap knock-offs of BBC comedy program series? More sex, violence, and celebrity crack shots? Cracker jokes? Or, err, do you mean by giving us Kafka?
Phil "Every once in a while I do a post about how many Jews there are in American public life, trying to get more comfortable with talking about it. It's fascinating on any number of levels, and no one talks about it, except anti-Semites and the Jewish press…." I have to assume this is a mistake Phil. Otherwise you sure have been flouting a lot of anti-semites on your blog….seeing as how you complain about not being in the Jewish Press this kind of puts you in the Berel camp – tell me it ain't so.
I hope all or most of the people who responded or wrote here (especially Todd and Phil Weiss) are really, really old and thus we won't have to put up with your kind for much longer in this country. The kind fhat writes blogs or books or makes movies pontificating about this grand imagined cultural conflict between the supposedly untamed Jews and the allegedly reserved WASPs or whatnot that never existed in the first place and that no one cares about today, save for a few old Jews (and some really dumb young ones) and a handful of non-Jewish bigots. It was old, and unfactual, in the 1960s, and in 2009 it is just about one of the most backward worldview points you can have in the U.S. Grow up.
And I hope you are only twelve.
I hope so, too. The more young people that don't have the blatantly un-American views that you do, the better.
Phil, part of being well-bred is to have enough security in one's place that one can be benign, even dull (from a Jewish perspective) for the sake of harmonious relations with one's neighbors. A well-bred person doesn't constantly feel the need to prove himself. For example, among old-line WASP's it is considered very bad manners to draw attention to one's wealth, knowledge, or social status in a manner that might seem boastful or make others uncomfortable. One could say that an almost perfect antonym for "good breeding" is chutzpah!"
"My wife said that it seemed to her kind of Jewish. She meant the unbridled critical faculty, which god knows I've ruined many a party with. She'd never do that. Breeding." If you think obnoxiousness, lack of manners and "class" is a Jewish attribute, I feel very sorry for you. Look, Jews may ruin a party or two, but how many Jews commit those murder-suicides which are all the rage now in Gentile society and among recent immigrants eager to ape American ways? I'll bet anything very few Jews do that ! And I'll fight it out on those lines all day! In fact, that was what clinched the deal for my wife, when I told her "Look, honey, I'll probably be a drag at parties, but at least you can be fairly sure I won't kill you, the kids, and then myself, unless I run out of bullets" After that the banns were published, and her Dad purchased a new shotgun for the happy nuptials.
Me, I'm strictly human dust, baby! BTW, Phil, I guy who can play the piano like George Gershwin and sing is never unpopular at parties. I sure wish I was that person!
Jews want to think they're arnold schoenberg when most are adam sandler. You want proof that Jews control the media? That's my proof. That's my ace in the hole. Adam Sandler! A guy who would almost certainly be in jail or dead in a sane world is considered an "actor" and "comedian" because he's Jewish. Or claims to be. Ditto, Jerry Seinfeld, someone preternaturally incapable of uttering a funny line.
Wow! That's brilliant. I would bet a trillion gazillion dollars that you would never say that (unfunny comedian) Steve Carell is famous because's a Catholic of Italian descent, or Will Ferrell because he's Irish-American, or Owen Wilson because he's Irish-American, or Dane Cook because he's Irish. If the director of the 40 Year-Old Virgin, which made Carell a huge star, was some Italian-American, you would never say that he cast Carell in it just to make a fellow Italian-American a star. (In fact, what was the Jewish Judd Apatow doing casting a non-Jew in such a potentially star-making role? Or casting Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up? Why make this non-Jewish woman a star? This negates all known Jewish behavior. Really.)
And that, my friend, is the reason all of these dumb discussions are ultimately junk, and always have been. Two words – Undue Weight. I find it absolutely hilarious – falling out of chair level, really – that Jews are the ONLY minority ethnic group in the history of the universe that has to actually actively apologize for its success, or hide that fact. If any other minority in the U.S. was so successful, it'd be a cause for celebration. If black or hispanic people were overrepresented in the media, journalism, acting, directing, colleges, the senate, etc. would this be seen as a bad thing? Of course not. Black people don't have to apologize for dominating basketball, nor is anyone attributing their success their to any conspiracy theories. If Blacks were 1/3 the population of many Ivy League schools, it would be a source of national pride. I guess this "we're really sorry!" attitude that some Jews have and the self-hating writer of this blog exemplifies is the last laugh of the bigot.
This seems to be what ticks racists off, in fact. When it comes to minority groups – either TOO MUCH success (Jews) or NOT ENOUGH (Blacks). I guess racists believe that there must be balance in the universe when it comes to "minorities" (or anyone who isn't "White" as the Great Dinosaur Todd says above, conventiently bunching in as "white" every single caucasian ethnic group except Jews, oddly; I guess Italians, Greeks, Spanish and even the Albanians get a ticket into being a "White"; Jews are excluded as per the "I'm a racist anti-Semite so everyone cauacsian is "WHITE" except for Jews who are some odd Satanic race" rule).
Yawn. How odd. FIrst you rebuke self-hating Phil and his anti-Semitic wife for their comments, which I commend you for. But then you not only seem to agree with them ("Jews may ruin a party or two"), but you also write the incredibly condescending and anti-Gentile phrase "murder-suicides which are all the rage now in Gentile society". Guess what? Considering Jews are only 2% of the U.S. population, it's fairly likely that only 1 in 50 of these "murder-suicides" will be committed by Jews. And there have certainly been a couple of famous Jewish killers in the past 100 years (Leopold & Leob, the Son of Sam, this Markoff guy is part Jewish). What annoys me is the attributing of this or that type of behavior to a particular ethnic group, something you condemned and then practiced yourself. And by the way, "Phil", I would assume at a movie producer party, it somehow seems likely that a more than decent chunk of those attending were Jewish. So if someone caused a ruckus, the odds of them being Jewish probably match the attendance rate.
The topic is whether or not Jewish culture has influenced elite culture. Do you claim it hasn't?
Let's see, jews are 2% of the population on the USA. Pretty easy to find a larger % of goys who stay drunk, abuse their wives & kids, fuck their sisters, murder someone, etc. Wonder what the proportional figures would look like? And how many rabbis never appeared on Predator? So much easier simply due to the 98% to trap goys. Ditto, e.g. Son Of Sam, and your average serial killer, etc. BTW prescription pill addiction is for the more wealthy, not booze, & Jews have the highest income of ethnic groups, not to mention they can afford a better lawyer, etc. Despite being only 2%, conversely, how many Jews are involved in fraud? Proportionately? You get my drift. Madoff was no simple coincidence. Or, was it? Rednecks were described so originally because they worked hard all day out in the sun. Now they are just trailer trash, a PC target. Thanks for jumping on them.
Gee, I thought it was a given that Jews took over Hollywood (after the Gentiles invented it, and made some good early pictures) and Jewish Hollywood gave the country its simple & shallow view of itself.
I don't think the country has a simple and shallow view of itself. That's the kind of condescending simplified opinion that you seem to accuse Jews of having. And haha, "some good early pictures". You are funny. You mean some 10-minute long silent movies in 1905? Or D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation? The "Golden Age of movies", as some call it (whether I agree is a different matter), was in the period when Hollywood studios were certainly more Jewish-controlled than they are now. Certainly at least from the beginning of talking film. And Jews didn't "take over" Hollywood – while no doubt non-Jews made many early films, it wasn't, geographically, in Hollywood. The industry that arose specifically in L.A. was Jewish from the beginning. And as such I don't think it matters that mostly Jews did and to a degree still do run many movie studios – if that's the business some Jews created in the first place, it's only logical some Jews will run it until, as time passes, it becomes more ethnically diverse. That's been the case for pretty much any business that's been created by one group.
Like a lot of things in popular culture, Hollywood has eroded and grown more coarse. Considering Jews created and controlled it from the time when that was not the case, I hardly see what they have to do with it. The movies changed as the country did. By the way, I thought this was just an anti-Israeli website, and as I've been repeatedly told, being anti-Israeli is not being anti-Semitic. So what an odd coincidence that everyone on this board certainly is anti-Semitic.