Writer/attorney Ronald Goldfarb, who is Jewish, penned the following for The Hill:
That conservatives have successfully propagated the propaganda that liberals control media is mind-boggling. It is right up there with the other myth — that the Jews own the media. A client of mine heard that common complaint from a cab driver in New York City. He asked who the fellow had in mind. CNN and Fox, the guy responded. It’s out — Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch are closet Jews.
Jeff Blankfort then commented on his statement:
As to Jews owning the media (as opposed to "the Jews)," being a myth, Mr.Goldfarb should know that that "myth" has legs. Unless there was a mass of overnight sales that have yet to be reported, the owners of the Washington Post, Newsweek, the New York Times, Boston Globe, NY Daily News, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and a number of others happen to be Jewish as are the owners of CBS, ABC, and all of the major Hollywood studios. They don’t all have the same politics but they do share the same religious background. As for Murdoch, he considers himself to be an honorary Jew, having received numerous awards as a friend to Israel by major Jewish organizations and he has openly stated his unqualified support for Israeli government policy many times and his Wall Street Journal certainlyreflec ts that.
Goldfarb’s statement is disinformation. According to Answers.com, the publication he works for is owned by News Communications, Inc., a company controlled by Jerry Finkelstein and run by his son James. Finkelstein’s other son is the former Manhattan borough president Andrew Stein, and it seems like his company has plenty-um Jews in it. Was Goldfarb being sincere with his readers?
The same sort of mystification suffused a panel of Jewish journalists at Yivo a couple years back. If people are interested in Jews running the media, they should get the facts. I’ve written that most of my checks as a reporter have been signed by Jews–god bless ‘em. It’s been an issue inasmuch as mainstream publications don’t cover Israel/Palestine fairly; and as the Times says, even leftwing Jews are passionately for Israel.
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Its still a lie for political purposes.
If you think the mass media doesn’t provide you with information from a variety of perspectives, that is one assertion. The description “the Jews control the media”, or even “Jews control the media” is a fascistic malevolent lie.
Even when it comes from Phil Weiss’ pen.
Work to create a better mousetrap if you think it is possible.
The mousetrap is afforded by tracing who owns and controls it. Thank goodness
Richard Witty is not in charge of obstructing who does carry special weight in the USA’s journlistic manipulation 0f USA’s public opinion.
How Jewish is Hollywood? by Joel Stein in the LA Times, Dec. 19,2008
“A poll finds more Americans disagree with the statement that ‘Jews control Hollywood.’ But here’s one Jew who doesn’t.”
“I have never been so upset by a poll in my life. Only 22% of Americans now believe “the movie and television industries are pretty much run by Jews,” down from nearly 50% in 1964. The Anti-Defamation League, which released the poll results last month, sees in these numbers a victory against stereotyping. Actually, it just shows how dumb America has gotten. Jews totally run Hollywood.
How deeply Jewish is Hollywood? When the studio chiefs took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago to demand that the Screen Actors Guild settle its contract, the open letter was signed by: News Corp. President Peter Chernin (Jewish), Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey (Jewish), Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger (Jewish), Sony Pictures Chairman Michael Lynton (surprise, Dutch Jew), Warner Bros. Chairman Barry Meyer (Jewish), CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves (so Jewish his great uncle was the first prime minister of Israel), MGM Chairman Harry Sloan (Jewish) and NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker (mega-Jewish). If either of the Weinstein brothers had signed, this group would have not only the power to shut down all film production but to form a minyan with enough Fiji water on hand to fill a mikvah.
The person they were yelling at in that ad was SAG President Alan Rosenberg (take a guess). The scathing rebuttal to the ad was written by entertainment super-agent Ari Emanuel (Jew with Israeli parents) on the Huffington Post, which is owned by Arianna Huffington (not Jewish and has never worked in Hollywood.)
The Jews are so dominant, I had to scour the trades to come up with six Gentiles in high positions at entertainment companies. When I called them to talk about their incredible advancement, five of them refused to talk to me, apparently out of fear of insulting Jews. The sixth, AMC President Charlie Collier, turned out to be Jewish.”
Read the rest here, Richard. You’ll like the tagline: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stein19-2008dec19,0,4676183.column
Richard, calling something a lie doesn’t make it so.
There are facts in the article above. And all you do is throw around the word fascist.
Remind me, why do we have to listen to your pathetic and frantic gasps?
Your name is filling up the entire recent comments section again.
And still nothing of substance to say.
Witty is just a promoter–as in the movie with the song Springtime for Hitler and
Germany. As Jesus said, he doesn’t know what he’s doing…
Now can somebody help me out on this? I’ve been reading Phil Weiss for many years now and I have seldom ventured in the commentary section. I started a few years ago to take a peek from time to time and I’ve been quite fascinated by the curious case of Richard Witty. I don’t read comments regularly enough to be sure about my opinion on him and I was wondering if other people better versed in the subtleties of the comments section could educate me.
From what I understand, he is a retiree (he obviously has a lot of time on his hands) who has deemed necessary to fight tooth and nails with the editorial line of Mondoweiss . I understand he gets along pretty well with Phil who I’m sure does not want to seem thin skinned and unable to deal with contradiction.
Yet I tend to see Richard Witty as an obstructionist who just want to fight the line of thinking advocated here and does not care one bit about thoughtful and sincere debate. Do people on the comment section share this view? Am I missing something?
If Witty is just an “obstructionist propagandist”, should we just ignore him? Thank you for your thoughts
Obstructionnist propagandist on a hasbarrah (not sure about the spelling) mission should I add.
I believe that Richard and Phil grew up together.
I think Richard is sincere in his beliefs – it’s not straight propaganda. I mean, he grew up Jewish and was (and is) obviously quite engaged in the religion and culture. So, in that sense, it’s not as if he were just a non-practicing or seldom-practicing Jewish man who went on a Hasbara Fellowhsip later in life and is now preaching everything Israel all the time.
Whether or not to ignore a poster is obviously your own prerogative. I recently returned to Mondoweiss after some time away (this is my first comment in months). I have read a few articles and corresponding comments, and my reactions to Richard’s comments are pretty much the same as they were before. I read them initially, and after a while they become robotic. I frankly don’t always understand what he is saying. Whether that is intentional obfuscation, simply his style of writing, or a deficiency in my own intellect, I do not know.
If you read enough of Richard’s posts, you will see a human side. There is feeling there, and some nuance from time to time. I remember once a few months back, after a contentious debate on whether or not Israel should sit with Hamas and negotiate, Richard, after steadfastly arguing against negotiations from Israel’s perspective, eventually changed course and said “Alright, they should talk with them.”
Just the other day, Richard ended a post of his by saying, “But nobody ever listens to me.”
Thanks for giving me some context. I’m happy to learn there is a heart behind the Hasbara propagandist. My talk about about not answering to Richard’s comment has no real point if I’m the only one doing so. I just think that Richard is a magnet to adversarial comments. Mondoweiss is quite ground breaking on many levels and it’s like Richard is here to remind us: “what you’re reading here is controversial, be aware you are out of the mainstream, be careful, no trespassing, you’re all going to hell…”. It’s like you find a place where you read intelligent discourse about these issues and you find people who are trying to stiffle the debate in the comment section. It’s as if I heard Witty say: “Well, I can’t close the site down but I can at least pollute the comments section in a way that makes it less relevant!”
It’s like we could be having a nice conversation in a very nice and quiet country club and Witty is turning it into a war zone.
It appears to be a lot more civil now than it was a few months ago. There were people on both “sides” who were obviously interested in nothing more than disrupting the discourse.
And the site appearance and layout is much more appealing now, too. Nice job Phil and Adam!
The MSM is not just a one subject concern, but is in the process of covering up, obscuring, being silent, and directly misleading on a myriad of subjects. If some Jewish people holds ownership or sway in the medium it is nothing but the same old story that has plague us for a long time (some say for fear, others for greed), of acclimating to power, serving those in power. The ability to mislead in the area of what the State of Israel does is just a payoff, for a service rendered of clothing the naked intentions of those in power in this nation. Yes, in this way the power is shared, but nonetheless it is a multifaceted concern.
I couldn’t agree more.
http://www.projectcensored.org/censorship/media-map/
http://nutritionresearchcenter.org/healthnews/who-owns-the-media/
And here, if you have nearly an hour of patience, is a very revealing video revealing
in real time the behind the scenes instructions by the spin handlers to the particular
national leader–it is a bit old, covering the 1980’s and 1990’s, but I’ ve never seen
anything like it in capturing how our political leaders are instructed how to skirt issues and omit relevant POVs. This is the real thing; one can only imagine how
much more sophisticated the players have become–it’s like capturing Goebbels’s ministry of information as they give live instructions on how to handle questions
from the crowd, that is, actual journalists.
posed at them and how issues are ignored by the MSM
http://www.truthfultv.com/html/spin_by_brian_springer.html
http://www.montanawomenfor.org/2008/05/01/who-owns-the-mainstream-media
The partnership between the MSM and national political leaders on TV is on-going,
and on the issue of Israel versus the Palestinian POV this partnership is bipartisan
just as if there was only one political party in the USA. Since Israel is a foreign state
with interests not identical to the USA, this is a very troublesome state of affairs. The USA as a whole is not served in this sense by the MSM, either on the major newspapers or on TV–with the one exception of C-SPAN, which the majority of Americans never heard of, or ever tuned into, e.g., the Washington Journal every day
on cable TV when most people are at work, or are doing their morning weekend chores.
Here’s some of the names controlling the MSM:
http://northerntruthseeker.blogspot.com/2009/08/who-controls-media-here-are-just-few.html
Further, Zionist Michael Medved has stated the Jews control Hollywood, and what of it?
I’m currently unemployed (after 9 years as financial manager of a natural foods manufacturer), working on numerous sustainability projects on a volunteer basis.
I’m an old family friend of Phil’s, since we were 13 and 12. (I don’t have much personal contact with him. He has rejected my personal invitations.)
I’m a long-time Israeli peace movement activist.
I ran a progressive spoken audio lending library in the 90’s that included nearly complete archives of Noam Chomsky lectures, and some of Norman Finkelstein. It also included some work of Jewish authors (in the context of multi-cultural programming) that the left objected to strongly (Cynthia Ozick). A few “progressives” publically boycotted the library on that basis, and that was my first significant experience of the confused dgmatic response of the far left on Israel as a litmus-test issue.
I’ve advocated for peaceful reconciliation and mutual respect since then.
The BDS movement is an example of partially well-meaning (Danny Glover) and also partially ill-meaning efforts to resist in the fashion of civil disobedience as a tactic of warring, but using “non-violent” methods as a tactic, not as a commitment to mutual improvement.
You will be asked this question again and again. You may as well copy it. ;)
The multi-cultural context & “the Jews” initially puzzled me. I met a Jewish lady netwise who worked for Pacifica radio who seems to have experienced really traumatic stuff there. Admittedly the issue puzzled me so much that I started to read all the books about Pacficia I could get my hands on. While I am open to her experience which I ultimately cannot judge, I am a still a bit puzzled. She is very complicated and compared to another Jewish friend not such a good communicator, which may have been part of her trouble. But then … These mobbing experience are usually very, very hard to communicate. Our first reactions are always, what about you?
My Canadian Jewish list friend (she is a US citizen) is the absolute opposite on the topic, a convinced multiculturalist ( he worked in Native Canadian circles, and wrote his thesis about the subject). Obviously there is a difference between Canada and the US. I should read this. I am starting to get a fan of the author. (But first I have to support my one and only niece Sarah with her thesis on “Internetverweigerer”/offliners – internet rejectors. )
I have to admit that initially I was skeptical about the issue. What book by Cynthia Ozick relates to “multicultural programming”? Admittedly I didn’t know her.
Ozick wrote an essay called All the World Wants the Jews Dead (1974). Her poetry appeared along with mine around that time in a Chicago literary magazine. Witty,
did you take the same POV back in the day about the BDS movement against apartheid S Africa?
RW I am sorry you lost your job and hope you find gainful employment soon. If not for anything else to ease the posting…lol I am just joking Richard.
Boycotting a site which just makes available a myriad of views is not acceptable. I mean if we do not read or listen to contrary views how are we going to relate to anyone who does not agree with us? However I think you need to disengage what is taking place with the BDS movement from your personal experience, if not for any reason other than we are litterally dealing with issues of life and death. Seriously
I’m not sure whether you are responding to my post asking people to give me their opinion about Witty’s contribution but I absolutely did not call for a boycott of anything.
I’m just saying that by being all over the place on the comment section, Witty is successfully impacting significantly the conversation. But I have the feeling that he is not interested in the conversation but rather in preventing it from taking place by dragging contributors in meaningless debates. If that were the case, I would advise a policy of “not replying to Witty, ever”.
“BDS of Witty” if you will, kind of last resort when talk has become irrelevant.
As I pointed out, I am not sure about Witty so I’m just asking a question here and would like to share views.
Fortunately, self-evident disproportionate Jewish ownership of mass media, and the consequential explicit (Zionist) and suggestive (Judeophile) Jewish supremacist narrative that mass media conveys, are finally being balanced by the Internet. Without the Internet, the Palestinians would have probably lost the entire West bank by now and Westerners would still believe they were the terrorist aggressors, the Bush/Neocon plot to lie America into the Iraq war would have never been exposed, and the pro-Zionist, two-party plutocratic-socialist elites would still have control over the narrative that they earnestly care about the interests of average Americans.
Some might call the Internet a Godsend. It has clearly democratized information, perspective and opinion, which can never be good for the string-pulling elites who rely on concentration, centralization and consolidation of power. In fact, that’s why so many products of organized Jewish indoctrination/ethos were/are attracted to totalitarianism politics and its monopoly on opinion: it allows them to pull the strings across entire continents by merely infiltrating and co-opting one authoritarian center of power, be it Moscow, Washington or some future imperial hub.
The Internet has proven a monkey wrench in their authoritarian program. Perhaps we can thank the heavens for that as well. Control-freaks of that level are generally psychotic.
Thanks, Chris. Yes, very much a monkey wrench.
It’s hard to imagine how there is any argument over this issue. I mean you just look it up. I can understand how you might want to argue that Jewish media influence doesn’t matter, or maybe that it’s even a good thing, but you can’t argue that it doesn’t exist.
Take the example of electronic news. Most people get their news from TV and in America it all comes from five news channels–ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and FoxNews (PBS’s market share is only a couple of percent). Let’s just look at the top and bottom of their news department management chains–
Of the people above, only Immelt, Murdoch and Ailes are not Jewish. Every single news department is either Jewish run or subject to Jewish management control, or both.
(Caveat: management shuffles pretty rapidly in the media industry, and I looked these up about a year or two ago. But I doubt that any recent changes have substantially changed the picture.)
Yes, very much to the point. Of course nobody is supposed t0 recognize what you say–Witty ignores it completely even as he obstructs serious discussion of the USA’s biased part in the I-P conflict by pretending it does not exist, and thus he shows he does not care about anything except what he thinks is “good4thejews”.
In light of the Jewish prevalence in the media and the pro Israel bent it has given us, would I be considered anti-Semitic if I were reluctant to vote for a Jew for president?
I will not question your “Jewish prevalence in the media => Israel bent it has given us” but will try to give an answer to the question.
Yes, I would say so. Not voting for someone based solely on his ethnicity/religion is racist. If you assume the behaviour of some members of an ethnic group to be the inescapable behaviour of all persons in this ethnic group, you just reduce people to their ethnicity/religion (some people are happily reducing themselves to just that but you cannot this behaviour on an entire group).
If you could reduce people to their ethnicity, you could wage a war against a country because you have some dispute with 20 unrelated people who just happen to share the same religion/ethnicity. That would make you an abominable racist. No doubt.
I agree, on the other hand I would deeply question such a candidate’s ulterior motives and hidden agendas. No Zionists need apply etc……
I think the point is in the word RELUCTANT.
I would be reluctant to vote for a Jew who advocate that it is the duty of all Jews to stand for Israel and that entering politics in a diaspora country could be a good way to help Israel.
This seems to be precisely what Dominique Strauss-Khan, former French Finance minister and now IMF chief, has declared. And he is a possible candidate from the left in the 2012 election. Needless to say, he will not get my vote.
Joel Stein is proud of the fact that the Jews control Hollywood. Young hipster that he is, he wrote an op-ed piece in the L.A. Times mocking recent polls that indicated a disinclination of the public to believe such canards as “Do the Jews Control Hollywood?” With feigned outrage he offers the evidence, listing all the studio heads and people of influence in Hollwood who are Jewish.
Imagine if Noam Chomsky had written this.
Its an example of “big lie” to use the term “the Jews” when referring to ownership of media.
There is NO dogma, no conspiracy, little consistency, among Jews about political attitudes, even on Israel.
The only commont thread that I can see, is a familial affinity with other Jews, that most that own or manage media, do have some family or friends that are in Israel or orthodox or otherwise strongly self-identified as Jews. And, among those that are tolerant, the predisposition to respect diversity is strong.
Most American Jews that I’ve met, including some of the very wealthy that are named as “The Israel Lobby” do not support Israeli expansion, though support the right of individual Jews and communities to reside in the historic Jewish homeland, including the West Bank.
Noting the ethnic origins of a group is only relevant if there is a CLEAR and demonstrable causitive relationship between a political position and the ethnicity. I don’t believe that that is the case relative to politics on Israel.
It is true that the convention media commonly regards terror by factions as repugnant, and so repugnant as the nearly permanently exclude proponents of it from peer status, especially if there is an element of overt hatefulness in the vanguard’s primary statements of purpose and identity (Hamas and Hezbollah).
I share that repugnance, and HIGH bar for proof of transformation. Not the rationalization, “they’ve agreed to accept the result of a plebiscite that would include all resident and diaspora Palestinians”.
“The only commont thread that I can see, is a familial affinity with other Jews, that most that own or manage media, do have some family or friends that are in Israel or orthodox or otherwise strongly self-identified as Jews.”
That’s enough for me not to want them influencing the news I get about our Middle East policy.
“not influencing”?
If you have options that present the majority of plausible and rational alternatives, then you get to pick.
The mass media functions within a range of credibility.
If you wish to extend that range, then present rationally a coherent worldview, not built of resentment solely, a BETTER mousetrap.
What’s in dispute as regarding the I-P conflict as handled by the MSM is the limited
range of credibility as revealed constantly by all the glaring omissions of events and the consistent omissions of the Palestinian POV and experience.
(1) You equate the phrase “the Jews” with a conspiratorial label. That’s your definition, and when you see it you assume the person writing it is secretly attributing a cabal-like agenda to the whole gang, all the Jews on the planet. “The Jews” has a stabbing, accusatory quality you don’t like.
You would prefer that Phil and others take the “the” out. it would then highlight what you prefer to call their ‘ethnicity’. “Jews” all by itself, without the article but maybe with an adjective like ‘American’, keeps the ethnic group from being misunderstood. It would distance Jews from a political position, which you feel is too broad within the Jewish community to attribute to all — correctly, I might add — and as you say in your post, you don’t think there is any “causative relationship” between being Jewish (ethnicity) and necessarily having a political position about Israel. Further, the fact of being Jewish (ethnicity) is not relevant, in your view, “relative to politics on Israel.” Which is a stunning statement to make given the current Israeli government push to return worldwide ‘abducted’ and ‘lost’ Jews to Israel and its efforts to make Hamas call it a Jewish state before it will begin peace talks.
(2) Do you ever refer to “the Catholics,” “the WASPS,” “the Italians” (ethnicity), “the Germans” (ethnicity)? How about “the Protestants” or “the Christian Right?” Are any of the religious groups within that list an ‘ethnicity’ and therefore spared proving an causative relationship when they venture in politics as they did under George Bush?
(3) You wrote “Most American Jews that I’ve met . . . do not support Israeli expansion, though support the right of individual Jews and communities to reside in the historic Jewish homeland, including the West Bank.” Let me clarify for you what you wrote: most of the American Jews you’ve met support Israeli expansion. Period.
Let me give you an example.
While many on the Zionist right use the term “THE Palestinians”, I don’t. And, I don’t because I don’t think of “THE” Palestinians as any monolith in any way.
I am heartened by seeing a range of perspectives expressed among Palestinians, that allows them to actually think through what is best for them, best for relations with their neighbors, and best for relations with the rest of the world.
The distinction between “THE” Jews or Palestinians, and individual Jews or Palestinians, is that identifying individuals respects their liberty and diversity, while referring to “THE” Jews or Palestinians, denies that there is diversity of perspective, that INDIVIDUALS perceive and interpret and propose differently from one another.
The REALITY of that diversity of opinion makes for a democracy, whereas ANY inference of single correct perspective (whether Zionist or anti) devolves into a tyrrany.
REFORM not revolution.
It is a racist query, even in the form that Phil approaches it publicly.
The actual content is that large conventional institutions generally oppose revolutionary efforts, in favor of the status quo. But, that is NOT constructed on the basis of ethnicity primarily, or barely at all, but is a function of being credible and part of the credible establishment.
The BAR for revolutionary changes is high, and should be. Wheels are round for a reason, not arbitrary. You can propose some better features to what is the existing design, and they can reach a point that they serve qualitatively different functions, but in my experience revolutionary approaches are rarely in fact revolutionary, and more often opportunistic.
And, in Palestinian politics, with the historical measure of a “successful” faction being, how effectively they can stick it to Israel, for street cred, is a primary example.
The angers expressed by militants to Fayyad’s effort at institution-building is an example of factioning for advantage, rather than working for some real good.
While I agree that “the Jews” is a bigoted and flagrant oversimplification, there is nothing bigoted about Phil’s approach here. Granted, I don’t expect someone who condones the Chabadnik fairytale of Jews having special souls which Gentiles lack to be able to distinguish what is bigoted from what isn’t.
You can take offense at the “chosen people” concept if you like.
As, it is not “chosen” for privilege in the way resentful people imagine, but “chosen” for obligation, for responsibility (with a great deal of discussion of the range of territory that that responsibility entails), your comment on “fairy tale” is equally a fairy tale to my experience.
If you want to be “chosen” also, you can choose to take on that responsibility voluntarily and become part of that obligation.
And, there are non-cultish ways to take on that responsibility, including the responsibility to pass it on to your children (thereby making it “traditional” in the same sense that Native American lifeways are “traditional”, a collective learning, and a collective obligation).
The obligation of a truly committed radical is also a “chosen” moniker, but to my mind with more vanity as to judgementalism.
Interesting, the concept of being chosen for obligation, for responsibility–Himmler
interpreted the function of the SS in exactly this way–see his archived speeches to his own troops. The privilege of hard obligation, hard duty, to serve the higher mission; in Himmler’s view, the continuity of the Aryan community.
Witty, I do not take issue with the “chosen people” concept in general, but rather the specific claim that Jews having special souls which Gentiles lack . You can try to weasel your way around addressing what I took issue with, but that only further demonstrates the depths of your intellectual dishonesty, and I have no interest in humoring anything of the sort.
Witty writes: ”
otherwise strongly self-identified as Jews. And, among those that are tolerant, the predisposition to respect diversity is strong.”
They might not support all the horeseshit of Israel but they sure keep their goddam mouths shut. else they’d be called self loathing Jews. They are cowards.
Which brings us back to the Amira Haas, and the Germans who kept silent back in the Nazi days.
On the recent Amira Haas thread here is mentioned the old jew who says the silent
Israelis remind him of the silent Germans back in the day.
Witty doesn’t want reference to “the Jews” because Jews are not monolithic. Fair enough. Then how about “organized Jewry,” defined as Jewish organizations pursuing Jewish interests, values and agenda — as Jews?
Witty further doesn’t want reference to “the Palestinians” for the same reason, and would apparently prefer reference to “Hamas” or “Fatah” instead. But thanks largely to organized Jewish influence, Hamas has been deemed by the U.S. government to be a terrorist organization. Therefore those defending Hamas can be accused of having terrorist sympathies or being terrorists themselves, (which is perhaps the chilling and intimidation effect that Zionists are angling for?)
How about this, then, Witty: The Palestinian resistance.
But really, these are all word games designed to distract. The overwhelming majority of Jews (99%?) have no problem whatsoever with vast generalizations when they are being cast in the victim’s role, ie “In WWII, The Germans attempted to exterminate The Jews,” or “The Jews of Russia were routinely exposed to pogroms,” or “Muslims seek to throw The Jews into the sea.”
Hasbara 101, Rule #9: Monolithic references to “the Jews” are acceptable to organized Jewry whenever it is being cast as the victim.
Or whenever “the Jews” are being cast as the light and collective saviour of and to the world, endless lists of warm brainy sensitive honchos in every positive human endeavor under the sun.
When one looks into it, it’s pretty hard to come up with a net gain for the world, many have concluded. I won’t bore you with the details.
Yes, let’s amend that.
Hasbara 101, Rule #9: Monolithic references to “the Jews” are acceptable whenever they are being portrayed as victims or as a light unto nations bearing benevolent gifts and contributions to society, but unacceptable whenever they are being portrayed as aggressors or otherwise critically evaluated, at which point all reference to “the Jews” is to be declared anti-Semitic.
My recommendation for those of Witty’s ilk is if they want to see the halt to the monolithic “The Jews” that they stop the “Lobby” process as defined by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, which is a very broad spectrum consisting not only of media but always having preferential access to media (and this cannot be broke off from ownership of the media). Which I believe hits the bulls eye of activity as well as the silence that Citizen speaks about – both work by activity and silence which work together in this instance as commission and omission that creates an appearance if not of a cabal a big club, with non-stop open media access while dissent is quashed and ignored.
M&W lay out what they men from pages 111 in their volume to 150, it is not merely the formal lobby but “loose coalition.” It might be more aptly described as the “pro-Israel community.” The boundaries cannot be identified precisely, the list is so long that it takes this many pages to accurately describe it. Plus most get unfettered main media access, with its consequent international platform. When so few of the opposition get any “press” it makes them appear as outliers, and begins to take on and is dismissed as an extreme fringe. This is what individuals like Witty rely upon, and what he takes upon himself on this blog, to call Phil’s approach “racist.”
Whereas there is access to everything which is contrary to this view supported by the mass media (as described above), it is that media which is most accessed by the general population. Many who are so wearied by trying to eek out an existence turn to because it is easy, rather than trying to mine for web sites.
While we are at it let me give a fuller definition of free speech, which major media is supposed to be tied to. Some envision free speech as merely the ability to express yourself in any given group individually without reprisal and so on – but its official definition as defined at the founding of this country is quite different. It not only means an ability to speak ones mind in an official sense, but to have an EQUAL PLATFORM. That platform for national issues that effect everyone, use public monies, and is quite questionable (indiscriminate support of Israel as well as other issues that effect every ones pocketbook) does not have an equal access platform in the major media. Until this issue is addressed it will have the appearance which some find so objectionable (”the Jews” as a monolithic group, etc.).
Yay for your mention of Equal Platform. Your distinction is so accurate, and necessary.
On another note to that, I’ve been flabbergasted to watch how that concept was purposefully undermined with the simple, yet deadly, introduction in the late spring of either 1994, or 1995, of the phrase ‘conspiracy theorist’, which was introduced as a virtual weapon to use in the early days of net news to combat the power and speed of the net, and demonize anyone who might use this new platform outside the editorial approval of the MSM. I dont have the long title of this 352-page document at hand, but I did read it then. Every calculated page of it.
The term ‘conspiracy theorist’ was introduced into the lexicon on purpose, according to this document. It was introduced expressly to shame and silence: the media equivalent of hurling ‘anti-semitic’ or ‘racist’ when reason gives way to overwrought emotion in an otherwise lively conversation. Broadcast newsmen, anchors, and journalists were urged to use this expression to silence cantankerous interviewees, or silence topics that veered off the accepted rails. An early adopter of the expression was Larry King, who peppered his interviews with the phrase during the summer of 1995 while the Paula Jones debacle was heating up. It was a great tool for King who didn’t have to know much about a topic to put an end to it on his show.
________________________________
P.S. For the record, I dont find the term “the Jews” unacceptable or monolithic. Everything is context, and the use of a preceding article is a red-herring without it.
“Conspiracy theorist” is an OLD accusation.
It is a criticism of one’s intellectual capabilities, intellectual process.
While there have been conspiracies, and there have been organized genocidal efforts, the majority of what is called those by the left and left/right are more accurately allignments’ of interest, common individual concerns.
To attribute some nefarious conspiracy to those events, is to misrepresent the events.
The danger with Walt/Mearsheimer’s thesis and Phil’s, invoking the old fascist conspiracy theories “the Jews control the media”, is that unless presented carefully (full of care), the effect is primarily to invoke the conspiracy theory mentality, and only secondarily to inform on degree and manner of influence (which is what they say they are doing).
When they (Walt/Mearsheimer) presented their thesis in rhetorical form in the London Review of Books article and defensive and polemical subsequent public presentation, they demonstrated careLESSness in a moral maze that required careFULness. Similarly for Phil with his headlining.
We all want attention.
And, Phil and Walt/Mearsheimer so far is lucky that the thesis and presentation have only resulted in a few publications of David Duke and colleagues.
Phil feels vindicated, that the danger did not rear its head (yet), in more actual conspiratorial racist expression.
It IS under the surface. There still is a lot of anti-semitism around, if Phil were to open his antennae to it.
Witty says, “It IS under the surface. There still is a lot of anti-semitism around, if Phil were to open his antennae to it.”
Now, there’s a shiny declarative sentence.
Warrants a Witty headliner: “Anti-semites Abound Around”
“To attribute some nefarious conspiracy to those events, is to misrepresent the events.” What events, Mister Witty?
Why, those under the surface.
“When they (Walt/Mearsheimer) presented their thesis in rhetorical form in the London Review of Books article and defensive and polemical subsequent public presentation, they demonstrated careLESSness in a moral maze that required careFULness.”
Just the opposite is true. They were careFUL, so careFUL in fact that many have since argued that they didn’t go deep enough in their expose.
“We all want attention.”
A proven way to get attention is to write a positive account of Israel. Or a book about the fate suffered by much of the European Jewish culture during WWII.
Negative accounts of Israel and its adherents and apologists do not fare well (in the U.S.) The reason Walt and Mearsheimer got so much attention was because they could not be ignored, their academic positions being what they were. Many have done excellent work on the subject before and since, but none have come close to getting the attention W&M received, again for the reasons given.
Frankly, W&M should have gotten even more attention. There are still A LOT of otherwise well-read people in this country who have no clue about The Israel Lobby.
On my blog (here) I’ve dealt with the question of when it is admissible to say “the Jews.” I conclude that for a certain action to be collectively attributed to the Jews, the following conditions must be met:
1. It must be carried out in the name of Jewish interests.
2. It must be part of a policy.
3. It must be done with the support and connivance of official Jewish institutions.
4. It must not be condemned by the majority of the Jewish public.
Of course, these conditions are very difficult to verify in the case of the media, because jorunalists, as different from settlers in the West Bank who stone Arab schoolgirls, don’t usually publicize their agendas. All you can do is make inferences.
To give an extreme example, Arabs are the only nationality consistently ridiculed and vilified in Hollywood pictures. Does this have anything to do with the large numbers of Jewish screenwriters? We can’t tell for sure, we’re not in their heads. But it would be utterly dishonest to claim that the inference is so far-fetched as to constitute antisemitism.
Another group consistently ridiculed and vilified in Hollywood pictures are the “rednecks.”
“To give an extreme example, Arabs are the only nationality consistently ridiculed and vilified in Hollywood pictures. Does this have anything to do with the large numbers of Jewish screenwriters? We can’t tell for sure, we’re not in their heads. But it would be utterly dishonest to claim that the inference is so far-fetched as to constitute antisemitism.”
The answer to much of this is that there is a confluence of interest Buster, it is a subterfuge that is all to commonly practiced after years of use with various power centers – it is what a diaspora uses. The answer is always that there are many served by the practice, which serves as plausible denial. It is like someone who does well at work, they not only make their immediate boss look good but make themselves more attractive. It is this and both, one and many.
Just like putting Arabs in a bad light is used to serve as a mask for the occupation by coupling it with the so-called “war on terror,” and yet it serves other interests in this said war on terror. Media and news in particular is also reciprocal, it covers a multitude atrocities with deceptive clothing (as I have said before) and gets a green light to do the same for the occupation. Yes and both, one and many.
And how about the obvious or semi-obvious (to rural and working class Americans) Jewish characters appearing so often in Hollywood films, especially teen films, and TV sitcoms? They are either endearingly goofy, or nerdy, or caring, forthright, and honest, and/or traditionally romantic,
or plain mundane heroes in the film’s local ambiance. Is that just a coincidence too?
The Israeli films of similar catagories are often more objective, from the few I’ve seen.
Witty: “There still is a lot of anti-semitism around, if Phil were to open his antennae to it.”
Yes, and, as Michael Medved points out in a recent Commentary Symposium, there is even more bigotry by mainstream Jews against Christianity, if Witty were to open his antennae a bit.
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