Any visitor to this site knows that I care, too much, about who is Jewish. Lest I disappoint, I wonder if the lopsided defeats of two Jews, Mark Green and David Yassky, in runoffs in New York City yesterday for the Democratic nominations for public advocate and comptroller, respectively, aren't a signal of the end of the Jewish meritocracy. I say that partly because this was in another way an ethnically-historic election; Yassky was beaten by John Liu, a councilman who if he wins in November, would be the first Asian-American elected to NYC citywide office.
But I also say it because it feels like the end of something. Mark Green epitomizes for me the Jewish rise in the establishment over the last generation. I first began following him in '86, when he took on Alfonse D'Amato for the U.S. Senate; I was dazzled by Green's verbal gymnastics, his telegenic smile, and the fact that he had been a Nader's Raider once, and had written an antitrust book for Nader along with young Bruce Wasserstein, before Wasserstein got into M&A and made bundles rejiggering the industrial landscape. I made a couple of lasting friends among Green's campaign staff. One of them gave me a talismanic statement about the Jewish meritocracy. He told me that his father had come home one day when he was a boy and announced with amazement, "Guess what, there's this test, and you take it in high school, and depending on how well you do, it determines how well you do in life." Not far off the truth, that. And it was said with a European wonder at this goldene medina-- the golden land, Yiddish for America.
Green and Yassky's opponents ran as outsiders; and according to the Times, they were able to tie Green and Yassky to Mayor Bloomberg because they (G and Y) had gone along with the mayor's effort to get the City Council to amend the term limits law to allow him to run for a third term. As we pointed out a day back, Green used campaign literature that appealed to Jewish ethnocentrism and Zionist feeling. While his opponent Bill de Blasio had Working Families Party support and exploited his marriage to a woman of color.
It all speaks to the changing role of Jews in American society. Privileged, more conservative, tied to Israel, whose ruthless destruction of civilians Green defended a few months back... and the Democratic base knows it.
Outsiderness helped bring us in with a fury 30 years ago. All good things come to an end.
You are associating the New Orleans hurricane with global warming.
Good God. Am I going to have to get out the Mr. Science Sock Puppet Theatre set again?
Granted, there isn’t that direct link between Hurricane Katrina and global warming — like there is in, say, the pattern of deliberate and methodical attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza (how many investigative reports have been issued presenting proof and testimony on that now?) and we all know how receptive you are to that data — but there is some statistical data to suggest that weather patterns are becoming unstable, and while it’s not conclusive, the best, most modern theories we have for meteorology predict that hurricanes will become both more frequent and more severe as the ecosphere continues to rise in average temperature (which it is — the data does show that beyond a shadow of a doubt).
You know, for a self described liberal you have a remarkable talent for falling back on right wing tactics of steering debates off the rails and damaging the integrity of scientific arguments recklessly. This is an article about Mark Green and you’ve goaded me into having to defend, of all things, the integrity of the scientific method. I’m just saying.
“This is an article about Mark Green and you’ve goaded me into having to defend, of all things, the integrity of the scientific method. I’m just saying.”
meow
In other words, will multiculturalism backfire on the Jews? That’s a question Kevin MacDonald raises. The genteel Protestant Establishment that the Jews decimated may turn out to have been much more deferential toward Jews than what replaces it, especially Catholic Latinos who accept no responsibility for the Holocaust and have their own tales of victimization to avenge. This sort of thing has happened before. When the Bolsheviks destroyed the liberal Europeanized bourgeoisie of Russia, they lost the Jews’ historical protectors, and wound up with the Georgian peasant Stalin. Jews study history a lot, but do they ever learn from it?
Eeeeh. Okay, while there is something to be said for what you’re saying, blaming the Communist revolution on Jews and Jews alone is… well, anti-Semitic. If it had been parsed as “Jewish support for the Bolsheviks was ironic” then maybe I wouldn’t have had a problem, but Kevin MacDonald sounds like he’s taking a perfectly good, perfectly rationale observation, adding just enough to twist it into some sort of agenda and then wielding that as a club against both Jews and multiculturalism.
And for the record, multiculturalism is not a Jewish invention (not an invention of any specific religion, really) and is not a Jewish / Jewish exclusive movement. While I’m not Jewish and thus cannot take direct offense to the part of the argument being directed against Jews, I can and most certainly do take offense to the assault on multiculturalism.
Jews played a huge role in engineering today’s multicultural US. Examples are the Frankfurt School, which pathologized ethnocentrism on the part of whites but not Jews or other minorities; Boasian anthropology (race a social construct); Jewish domination of the civil rights movement in order (as Harold Cruse notes) to fight against anti-Semitism by proxy; and most importantly the Jewish-sponsored 1965 immigration law, which eliminated national origins quotas. The goal was to replace the dominant white racial majority with a collection of strongly identified ethnic minorities, in which the Jewish model of partial assimilation would not stand out.
Whatsamatter, Chaos, can’t leave the “catfight”? Okay, now you know what it’s all about. I don’t know about you, but I know an anemic, second hand anti-semitism when I see it. Why he thinks it’ll fly here, I don’t know, but he just won’t give it up.
AF: “The goal was to replace the dominant white racial majority with a collection of strongly identified ethnic minorities …”
Chaos: “I can and most certainly do take offense to the assault on multiculturalism.”
Chaos and Mooser, since you both seem to be proponents of multi-culturalism, do you disagree with AF’s statement above concerning the goal of the 1965 immigration law (leaving aside any question of which groups were responsible)?
Oh “America First” race is not a social construct? Please, tell us what it is then?
Please, be my guest, please tell us what characteristics are associated with which degree of skin color or lip or nose shape? Oh, and by the way, which “race” are the Jews? And what are the characteristics of the Jewish “race”
If that’s too complicated, please tell us what the characteristics of any goddam race are, huh? And one question, you big ignorant heap of bigoted ignorance, did the “races” develope seperately from different monkeys, or did some of us just degenerate in the hot African sun?
“Jewish domination of the civil rights movement ”
Yeah MLK used to be the Rabbi at my schul before he got on the Civil Rights kick.
“Please, be my guest, please tell us what characteristics are associated with which degree of skin color …”
The darker one’s skin is, the less one is subject to sunburn.
Question: “… did the “races” develope seperately from different monkeys?”
Answer: No, geographical isolation combined with environmental diversity led to the development of different “races”.
“Answer: No, geographical isolation combined with environmental diversity led to the development of different “races”.
Okay, maybe, but you and I agree that the “differences” between these “races” are all the same species (homo sapiens) can all mate with each other, and “race” cannot be used in any way to seperate human beings, except as a social construct, right?
Most certainly, Mooser. I am not a racist.
BTW, I have noted a number of times on this blog that I do not regard “the Jews” as being members of a “race” of people. They are members of a “social construct”, or what I call a cultural construct with significant historical continuity.
He told me that his father had come home one day when he was a boy and announced with amazement, “Guess what, there’s this test, and you take it in high school, and depending on how well you do, it determines how well you do in life.” Not far off the truth, that. And it was said with a European wonder at this goldene medina– the golden land, Yiddish for America.
Brilliant. The ‘meritocratic’ society is a myth. Upper crust, WASPs performed feats of logical gymnastics to discredit the value of testing in admissions policy in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to stem the tide of Jewish admissions, and miracle of miracles, when Asians later became kings of the admission test, suddenly the alleged ‘overemphasis’ on the value of test scores became an issue again. There is nothing more nauseating than the back patting and secret hand shake society arguing that a meritocracy exists. Afterall, ‘my ascent to the top is proof of the meritocracy.’
Well, at any rate, America First, I notice you have the complete concurrence of Richard Witty. He doesn’t care how you rate the Jews compared to others, as long as they come out ahead of “the Arabs”
I cannot believe Phil and Adam will allow their site to be used as a racist disseminator, but that’s up to them.
Everybody here who doesn’t think like Mooser does, get off!
You know, now that I’ve read the actual post, I can see that America First doesn’t even know what it says, but he saw the terms “Jewish” and “meritocracy” or something, so he saddled up his favorite hobby-horse, and rode into battle!
He loses regularly because he’s an arrogant little ass.
This fellow Witty really does adore attention doesn’t he? The calculated contrarian is always the center of attention for a while – until the crowd tires of their performance. The zionist talking points can be found already in countless places – from many mouthpieces in our own government thanks to the power of the Lobby.
But when you talk global warming you’re on my turf. When the current prolonged solar minimum abates and the sunspot cycle kicks in and in a few years we’re at solar maximum the acceleration of glacial melt and increased atmospheric heating builds and we see more devastating effects the fools who ignore what is in front of their faces will sheepishly put their tails between their legs and finally shut up. The paid naysayers will still be at it, using zionist tactics of blaming the victim: “A hotter world with more CO2 is a good thing! Trees will grow faster! We were already in the middle of the Earth’s 6th great die-off!”
What is interesting is how this will all trump Palestinian conflict. Do the readers here know that israel intends to take over all the natural water supply in the whole region and provide/allow only desalination plants for the Palestinian population’s water needs? Withholding key parts or bombing those facilities and you take away their water – their ability to survive. Now that’s chutzpah
If there is one thing which doesn’t scare Zionists, it’s the sun! Didn’t you know the armies of Israel can simply stop that big ol ball of burning Halvah in its tracks?
That bodes well for Zionist vampires.
See the thing is, as soon as you concede that “race” is a real and valuable thing, you end up either a ZIonist, or supporting Zionism. After all, why should the Jews risk, even in a completey egalitarian state, assimilation which would “dilute” their “racial characteristics” And since “race” can be constructed to mean anything you want, once you concede it exists and is important, well, why shouldn’t Jew want to live the kind of lives and have the kind of politics and culture “which are expressive or typical for their race”
See what I mean? The anti-Zionist, or even those hoping to mederate Israel’s behavior for its own good (like most American Jews who are critical of Israel) should look for no succor on the right, for two reasons:
One, anyone who believes in “race” and all the attendent garbage (racial “characteristics”, vertical ordering of “races” best to worst, “pure” blood, “races” belonging to certain lands, etc.) is halfway to ZIonism, either to give the Jews “what their race wants” or “to get them away from our race”.
Second, on the right Islamophobia and Orientalism will trump anti-Semitism, every time. From whence, otherwise, cameth the “jewish” neo-conservatives, who were so sucessfull in getting 5000+ Americans, very few of whom, I’ll wager, fasted this Yom Kippur to go get themselves killed.